Home
by Crookshanks22
Summary: Remus Lupin's voyage of discovery vis a vis Nymphadora Tonks. Turns out there's a lot he doesn't know . . . A leisurely, wistful romance set during OotP and HBP. Delves into his history and hers. Now complete! Written postHBP, mildly AU.
1. In the Kitchen

Author note: This is a leisurely, wistful Remus-Tonks romance that endeavors to respect the generally rather traditional social norms of the wizarding world (no impulsive tumbling into bed, at least not on the part of Remus and Tonks) and the gravity of Remus Lupin's condition (because, in the world J. K. Rowling has created for us, lycanthropy is real and crippling—physically and, potentially, morally as well). I envision this story as an account of Remus Lupin's psychological voyage of discovery vis-à-vis Nymphadora Tonks. Expect twenty chapters.

**Chapter 1: In the Kitchen**

Nymphadora Tonks was a Hogwarts friend of Charlie Weasley's whom Arthur recruited for the Order. She had trained as an Auror and gone to work for the Ministry, and one evening Remus arrived at Grimmauld Place to find Sirius and Mad-Eye Moody entertaining a young witch with spiky pink hair.

"Remus," said Sirius, "this is Nymphadora—"

"Tonks!" exclaimed the witch.

"—who is possibly the only daughter of the House of Black—"

"I am _not_ a daughter of the House of Black!"

"— ever to make good. She is brave, she is beautiful, and she is my cousin, so hands off. She's coming to work for the Order."

"Wotcher, Remus?" said the witch, smiling cheekily.

He liked her at once. Her intuition was sound, her intelligence keen, her reflexes quick, and her dueling skills good. Her efforts to help Molly with the housework were clumsily endearing. Tonks's full-time job at the Ministry limited her contribution to the Order to odd jobs and casual espionage, but her pragmatic interjections at meetings fascinated Remus. She had an ability to cut to the heart of the matter, a maturity of judgment, that belied her youth, for in appearance she could easily have passed for eighteen.

She was perceptive. Scarcely ten days after Tonks joined the Order, Remus apparated into Grimmauld Place following a grim and painful transformation at a shack in the Peak District. His condition was hurting him more than it had in years; the Wolfsbane Potion controlled his outward aggression but not his anguished dreams, and he resented every hour lost in the fight against Lord Voldemort.

Tonks was sitting alone at Sirius's kitchen table. "Wotcher, Remus?" she asked. "Molly told me you were ill."

"I'm feeling better now, thank you."

"Do you always get sick at the full moon?"

Remus was staggered. No one had ever figured it out so quickly before. "I'm a werewolf. Did Molly tell you?"

"No, but it was clear there was something she wasn't telling me. And Sirius calls you 'Moony.' It's treatable now, isn't it?"

"It's treatable," muttered Remus. "Treatable but not curable. I feel like I spend half my life being sick, and I'm a danger to everyone around me."

"I shouldn't think so, no, not if the potion is working."

Remus raised his eyebrows.

"I'm an Auror, Remus. I've studied werewolves. I wrote five scrolls of parchment on werewolf, giant, and goblin mainstreaming for my first-year mods. Believe me, werewolves came off best. Shall I make you some tea?" She flicked her wand at the kettle, which promptly whistled, overflowed, and dripped hot water all over Molly's dog-eared copy of _One-Charm Baking_.

* * *

Tonks also proved willing to deploy her vast store of general knowledge on behalf of the order. "Tonks's grandparents are Muggles," Arthur explained proudly over dinner one night. "They live in a special type of Muggle house called a 'semi-detached,' with eckeltricity and plugs and everything. She's been to stay with them—"

"Loads of times," smiled Tonks.

"—and last Christmas holidays they made her popcorn in their microwand oven! Really, I don't know where Muggles get such ingenious ideas! Microwand ovens are almost like cooking by wand—for people who can't do magic, of course. They're boxes, like this—" Arthur indicated the dimensions with his hands.

"Not exactly micro," observed Fred.

"Yeah, they ought to call them _macro_-wand ovens," scoffed George.

"—and there are hundreds of tiny wands implanted in the sides of the box and the roof and the floor. You put the corn kernels in the middle of the box and press a button, and poof! All the little wands shoot spells at the corn kernels, and they pop, just like magic!"

"Some of them tell the time, too, Arthur," said Tonks.

A dreamy expression flooded Arthur's face. "I really, really ought to get us a microwand oven. We could put it in the living room at the Burrow, and—"

"Arthur, you have better things to do these days than tinker around with Muggle gimcracks! Surely—"

Ron rolled his eyes. Remus cleared his throat and tapped Molly gently on the shoulder. "Molly, if everyone's been served now, I have a question for the group. About Harry."

"Oh, yes, Remus, of course. You're going to fetch him, aren't you?"

"As soon as possible. Me and about nine of my closest friends." Tonks laughed. "The question is, how are we going to distract his aunt and uncle long enough to leave the coast clear?"

"Surely we can handle a trio of unarmed Muggles," said Mad-Eye Moody. "Just a couple Petrificus Totalus spells, and some minor memory modification—"

"Can I come?" asked Fred. "George and I've got some great ideas about how to modify Dudley's memory. We might insert a thing or two, of course—"

"You are not flying on any missions for the Order!" shouted Molly, exasperated. "You are seventeen years old—"

"I'll come along as Snuffles and create a diversion," suggested Sirius eagerly. "That Petunia is certain to be afraid of dogs—"

"You are not flying on any missions for the Order, either, Sirius!"

"Molly, you can't talk to me that way, I am _not_ your child—"

"Sirius?" said Remus quietly. "Molly? This is silly. We can take on the Dursleys if need be, but Dumbledore already had to send them a howler, and he thinks it would be better if we got them quietly out of the way with a minimum of magic. So do I. We just need some simple diversionary tactics."

"I'll send them a telegram saying they've been short-listed for the all-England best-kept suburban lawn competition," said Tonks brightly.

"Naw, no one'd believe that," said Ron. "How about inviting them to an exposition of really up-to-date Muggle tooth-straightening hardware? Super-efficient, just three years and—Ouch! Hermione, why did you kick me?"

"Maybe you could offer them a brand-new microwand oven," suggested Arthur, "and tell them they have to go to Dorchester to pick it up. No, wait, that wouldn't work, we'd have to actually get a microwand oven from somewhere," he added sadly.

"Let's go with the all-England best-kept suburban lawn competition," said Remus. "Unless, of course, you would prefer to offer them a free car wash-wax-rinse-and-spin."

"How'd you think of that?" cried Tonks, delighted.

"Well, you see, my grandparents were Muggles too."

* * *

The Order of the Phoenix held its meetings at irregular hours—sometimes before supper, sometimes late at night or in the wee hours of the morning—in the once stately, now dilapidated dining room on the first floor rear of Grimmauld Place. During Dumbledore's too frequent absences, Remus found himself running meetings, tasting an unfamiliar authority after years of drifting from one small teaching job to the next and then—when Dolores Umbridge's Werewolf Regulatory Act took effect—just drifting. He had been a fresh and, he now realized, unseasoned twenty-two in the First War; the witches and wizards he looked up to then now seemed to be deferring to him—and still more strangely, depending on him—to focus their energies and coordinate their work for the Order. Remus wasn't quite sure whence this newfound precedence had come. More than once, he tentatively offered to cede authority to others, but found they were all too busy, too preoccupied with their own missions, anxieties, or private lives, to accept.

"Much as I would like to relieve such a volatile and changeable—_man_—of these taxing responsibilities," sneered Severus Snape, "I am afraid that I am hardly in a position to do so. _Some_ of us have jobs. I, for example, am needed at Hogwarts." He disapparated.

"Moony, you'll just have to get used to being prefect," counseled Sirius, sounding amused.

"I was a lousy prefect," muttered Remus. "I enticed my best friends to break about thirty-seven different laws about Animagus transformations, and I had no authority whatsoever with anyone past the third year."

Sirius took a swig of whiskey and clinked his glass on the kitchen table. "You set a fine example: reasonable, decent, responsible, not goody-goody. We respected you immensely." He added, with a glimmer in his eye, "We just didn't do anything you told us to."

"Lily was the one who set an example. A natural-born prefect if ever there was one. And everyone—or, well, everyone other than you and James—listened to her."

"Lily's dead." Remus and Sirius looked up, startled, to see Mad-Eye Moody stumping into the kitchen. "Sorry, boys, but there's no sense living in the past. It's a whole new world and a whole new war. Nothing undermines a fighter as much as getting mired in circumstances that are over and dead and gone. Constant vigilance!" Moody slammed his fist on the table. "And common sense. We'll make do with what we've got. You're the right man for the job, Remus."

"I'm a sick man, Alastor."

"You're the decentest werewolf I ever met," chuckled Mad-Eye. "And I've met a few. Seen the chip out of my wooden leg, just below the kneecap? Came from tripping over the bench outside the Three Broomsticks when Fenrir Greyback was chasing me through Hogsmeade, round about the end of the last war. Luckiest thing that ever happened to me, tripping over that bench. I fell through the window into the bar and Greyback just kept running. Anyway, the Order needs someone unemployed who's got time to spend at headquarters. _And_ someone who knows how to control himself—not like Snuffles here," he added, tapping Sirius with his wand. "Be glad of what you've got to give."


	2. Past Present

Author note: This chapter contains dialogue from J. K. Rowling, _Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix _(New York: Scholastic, 2003), pp. 122-123, 176-177.

**Chapter 2: Past Present**

Remus had moved into Grimmauld Place as soon as the Order of the Phoenix established headquarters there. Sirius was embarrassingly pleased to have company. He prowled the house day and night, staring longingly at the front door, pouncing on any new person who came to visit. All summer, he kept open house, with six Weasleys, Hermione, and eventually Harry in residence, and Mad-Eye Moody, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Bill Weasley taking potluck in the kitchen three or four times a week. Though he had not seen Tonks since her childhood in the First War, Sirius warmed to her at once, inviting her to supper night after night, questioning her eagerly about everything from Ministry gossip to which hexes had been in fashion during her final year at Hogwarts.

"—and have you seen Ginny's bat-bogey hex? She did it to George the first night they were here, after he tried to slip a Nosebleed Nougat into her ice cream sundae. It was a sight, I never saw Molly so flustered—and George just stood there laughing—"

"Yes, I know, Ginny tried it on the ghoul in the upstairs bathroom—except the bats didn't stick to him, the ghoul just plucked them off and chucked them back at Ron—"

"Filthy little blood traitor assaulting our faithful ghoul," muttered Kreacher, drifting through the kitchen. "Oh, if my mistress could see what her house has come to! Creepy half-breeds and blood traitor brats from cellar to attic—"

"Hello, Kreacher," said Tonks. Kreacher stared through her as if she weren't there.

"Say good afternoon to Tonks, Kreacher," said Sirius mischievously. "Her grandfather was my father's brother. _A blood relation_. Surely you can't resist welcoming _a daughter of the House of Black_?"

"Sirius, I am not—"

Kreacher bowed reluctantly to Tonks. "Good afternoon, young lady. Welcome to you. Sneaky unnatural changeling, what her mother ran off with a Mudblood louse," he added under his breath.

"Oh, she'll be so thrilled that you remember her, Kreacher!" exclaimed Tonks cheerfully. "Don't worry, I'll pass your message along!"

Remus smiled. What impressed him most about Tonks was how lighthearted she was. She injected the only note of gaiety into the Order's increasingly grim meetings—a true gaiety, honest and unforced, differing greatly from Sirius's jocular humor, which was always tinged with bitterness. Watching her, listening to her spar with Sirius, Remus was reminded of the First War, when he had been twenty-two like Tonks, when Sirius and James had laughed and joked about their missions with the same lightheartedness, with the same unthinking bravery, with the same utter lack of understanding of what was to come.

* * *

Remus himself was feeling anything but light-hearted when he rose on the morning of the 12th of August, the day of Harry's hearing. He stumbled down to the kitchen and started making coffee. Tonks was coming off night duty; she would need it. And Molly and Sirius had both been in a bad way the night before.

He was already sitting at the table, reading yesterday's _Daily Prophet_, when Arthur came in, followed closely by Sirius, who was muttering to himself and did not look as if he had gotten any sleep.

"Molly'll be down in a minute," yawned Arthur. "She's just rapping on Harry's door."

There was a clatter in the front hallway.

"Damn that girl!" exclaimed Sirius.

"_Stains of dishonor, filthy half-breeds . ._ ." came the high-pitched roar from the portrait of Mrs. Black.

"Want help?" asked Remus without enthusiasm.

"No, I'll take care of it."

As Sirius went out, Molly bustled into the kitchen in a quilted violet dressing gown that emphasized every flaw in her figure. Arthur looked at her fondly. "Good morning," she said resolutely, surveying the table, which bore three coffee cups and several crumby plates from the previous night. "Aren't you eating _anything_?"

"Oh," said Remus, embarrassed. "I—um—I forgot." Arthur brushed the sleep out of his eyes as Molly began to assemble a meal.

"Long sleeves in August, Remus?" whispered Tonks, sliding into the chair next to him and yawning broadly. She was wearing her "Weird Sisters" T-shirt, cut-off jeans that displayed her slender legs, and a garish purple kerchief tied round blonde, curly hair. "Whatever were you thinking?"

"I'm an old fuddy-duddy," shrugged Remus. "I may dress shabbily, but I dress properly."

"Couple o' spells and I could redesign those clothes for you in a minute," suggested Tonks. Remus shook his head.

"Don't bother," interjected Sirius. "Moony is actually _proud_ of his grey hair."

"If I could morph other people—" began Tonks.

Remus smiled. Having lived with James and Sirius, he recognized an empty threat when he heard one.

Tonks caught his eye and smiled daringly. She pulled out her wand and struck Remus lightly on the top of his head. "_Accio grey! Remus transformus!_" Nothing happened, but Remus burst out laughing.

The tension broke for a moment, as Molly shoved steaming bowls of porridge and fruit before them. Tonks played with hers, stirring the fruit into the cereal and diving after it with her spoon. "Rufus Scrimgeour," she yawned, "has been asking me questions—" She yawned again.

"Yes?"

"He saw me—" yawn "—going into the Ministry the other night . . ."

Harry crept into the kitchen looking pale and young and eager to disappear.

"Breakfast," exclaimed Molly, jumping to her feet.

"M-m-morning, Harry," yawned Tonks. "Sleep all right?"

"Yeah," said Harry, staring at Tonks, who was almost drowning in yawns.

"I've b-b-been up all night," she explained. "Come and sit down . . ."

Harry looked slightly sick, though not uncurious about why Tonks had been up all night. Remus quickly changed the subject back to Scrimgeour.

In the end it was Arthur who tackled Harry. "How are you feeling?" he asked gently.

Harry shrugged.

"It'll all be over soon. In a few hours' time you'll be cleared." Arthur paused. Harry said nothing. "The hearing's on my floor, in Amelia Bones's office. She's Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and she's the one who'll be questioning you."

"Amelia Bones is okay, Harry," said Tonks, comfortingly. "She's fair, she'll hear you out."

"Don't lose your temper," interjected Sirius. "Be polite and stick to the facts."

"The law's on your side," Remus pointed out. "Even underage wizards are allowed to use magic in life-threatening situations."

Harry just nodded silently, jumping only when Molly tackled him with a wet comb.

"I think we'll go now," said Arthur, checking his watch. "We're a bit early, but I think you'll be better off there than hanging around here."

"Okay," said Harry docilely.

"You'll be all right, Harry," said Tonks, brushing his arm.

"Good luck," said Remus. "I'm sure it will be fine."

"And if it's not," growled Sirius, "I'll see to Amelia Bones for you . . ."

Remus did not want to think about what Sirius would do if the hearing did not turn out well. He did not want to think about what he would have to do, what would have to be done. But he did, on the whole, think Tonks looked nice in cut-off jeans.

* * *

Molly threw a party for Ron and Hermione, the new Gryffindor prefects, on the last night before the new term. It could—though Remus took jolly good care not to say this aloud, especially not in front of Sirius or Molly—it could have been a party for Harry too, who stood the unexpected ordeal of trial by the full Wizengamot for repelling dementors that had certainly had no business in Little Whinging. Even Dumbledore did not know why they had been there. Remus was relieved that Dumbledore had not made Harry a prefect; he felt obscurely that further political complications—even if they amounted only to machinations among fifteen-year-old prefects—could not make Harry safer.

It was a strange little party. Tonks was enjoying herself, telling silly stories of her Hogwarts days to Ginny and Hermione; Remus wished he could join them. Kingsley was determinedly talking shop. And Mad-Eye was carrying around the photograph. It had been taken at some forgotten gathering of the Order, oh, sixteen, seventeen years ago. Remus had not looked at the thing in fourteen years, not since that bitter night—waxing moon—when he sat up drinking with Mad-Eye and Minerva and Elphias Doge as their dead friends waved to them eerily from the photo. Now Mad-Eye was showing it to Harry . . .

And now, as Harry melted out the door, he was showing it to Sirius and to Kingsley. Sirius liked the photograph. Sirius liked living in the past. Remus sat back in his chair, thinking of his friends who were yet alive. Alastor, when he had two eyes. Frank and Alice, when they had their wits. Sirius, when he still knew how to laugh . . .

From the living room came a series of cracks and the sounds of a woman keening. Remus jumped and ran, Mad-Eye and Sirius hot on his heels. Harry, dead on the floor; Harry, alive and anxious, beside the door; Molly transfixed, moaning faintly, wand in hand.

"Riddikulus!" said Remus firmly, demolishing the boggart. Molly burst into tears.

"Molly," he said bleakly, "Molly, don't . . ." He took her in his arms. "Molly, it was just a boggart. Just a stupid boggart . . ."

"I see them d-d-dead all the time!" sobbed Molly. "All the t-t-time! I d-d-dream about it . . . D-d-don't tell Arthur," she gulped. "I d-d-don't want him to know . . . Being silly . . ." Remus took out his handkerchief and handed it to her. She blew her nose. "Harry, I'm so sorry, what must you think of me?" she asked, slightly more coherently. "Not even able to get rid of a stupid boggart . . ."

"Don't be stupid," said Harry, helplessly.

"I'm just s-s-so worried. Half the f-f-family's in the Order, it'll b-b-be a miracle if we all come through this . . . . and P-P-Percy's not talking to us . . . What if something d-d-dreadful happens and we had never m-m-made up? And what's going to happen if Arthur and I get killed, who's g-g-going to look after Ron and Ginny?"

"Molly, that's enough," said Remus. "This isn't like last time. The Order are better prepared, we've got a head start, we know what Voldemort's up to . . . Oh, Molly, come on, it's about time you got used to hearing it—look, I can't promise no one's going to get hurt, nobody can promise that, but we're much better off than we were last time, you weren't in the Order then, you don't understand, last time we were outnumbered twenty to one by the Death Eaters and they were picking us off one by one . . ."

"Don't worry about Percy," said Sirius abruptly. "He'll come round." His brother, thought Remus abruptly. Sirius is thinking about his brother. "It's a matter of time before Voldemort moves into the open; once he does, the whole Ministry's going to be begging us to forgive them. And I'm not sure I'll be accepting their apology," he muttered.

"And as for who's going to look after Ron and Ginny if you and Arthur died," said Remus, "what do you think we'd do, let them starve?"

Molly smiled faintly. "Being silly," she murmured, mopping her eyes, "being silly . . ."

"Everything okay?" asked Kingsley when Remus returned to the kitchen.

"Molly has a nasty boggart."

"The First War took a lot out of her, didn't it?"

"Her brothers," said Remus briefly.

Kingsley nodded. "And Sirius too—or was that all Azkaban? Hestia said she wouldn't have known him again."

"There's a bit of history there," said Remus quietly. He was very, very tired.

"So I gather," chuckled Kingsley. "Sounds like Snuffles was a randy dog."

Remus shrugged. "Hestia was a bit wild herself in those days." Hestia Jones was a Muggle-born witch who had been just one year above them at Hogwarts. Remus remembered her regaling the Gryffindor common room with jazzy tales of the sexual libertinism she had witnessed at home. Her mother was a folk singer, and her father was head gardener for a commune that subsisted chiefly on marijuana and root vegetables; she had seen quite a lot. Such had been London in the 1970s. He remembered Hestia being reprimanded for her language and her miniskirts. Professor McGonagall did not let the mores of the Muggle world intrude far into the Gryffindor common room. Aloud, he said, "It was a different era."

"There was a war on then, you mean?" asked Kingsley, in a tone that implied there was a war on now.

Remus, who remembered the horrors of the First War more fully than Kingsley could, said simply, "Yes. And on the other side—the Muggle side—it was the 1970s. A wild era in human history."

"Even for you, Professor Lupin?" piped up a sweet, young female voice. Remus jumped. Ginny? Hermione? He would not have spoken so plainly if he had realized the children could hear him.

But the speaker was Tonks. She sidled up to them, smiling, shaking a curtain of red hair that, to Remus, still whispered Lily rather than Ginny. And she was, technically, an adult.

"For me," he said, a little sadly, "for me, it was wild in all the wrong ways."

* * *

They saw the children onto the Hogwarts train at King's Cross the next morning. Remus breathed a sigh of relief when the warning whistle sounded. "Well, good luck to them!" said Tonks, waving to Ginny, who had just opened the compartment window. "And bad luck to us. It'll be duller without the kids around."

The beginning of the school year necessitated new potion arrangements as well. Ever since the Order had been recalled, Severus Snape had been delivering the Wolfsbane Potion regularly to Grimmauld Place—not without some grousing. But this was an unsatisfactory solution at best: Snape was needed elsewhere, on assignments more pressing than potion brewing. After a good deal of consultation, Snape broke the Wolfsbane Potion into three component parts, two liquids and the chopped wolfsbane, that could be prepared in advance and combined just before the potion was drunk. This task usually fell to Molly or Tonks. Remus had floundered through NEWT-level Potions under Horace Slughorn's indifferent eye, but he was well aware that it was only Lily's patient, reassuring tutelage that had secured him an "Acceptable." Molly, on the other hand, had done well in Potions and had honed her expertise considerably in the process of raising seven rowdy, accident-prone children. And Tonks, somewhat surprisingly, turned out to be a potions whiz.

"It's so much easier than cooking," she explained happily to Remus. "I'm dead clumsy at cooking—it's something in the wrist—but potion brewing is _precise_. You follow the instructions exactly, and you only have to worry about the final product works, not about how it looks or tastes or anything! Cooking is mostly wandwork, but potions is brainwork, you see—"

Remus, who was a good cook though a poor potioneer, smiled and held his tongue.

* * *

Remus's good opinion of Tonks was, he soon found, shared by wizards beyond the Order. One September afternoon he was sitting with a sheaf of notes outside Florean Fortescue's ice cream parlor in Diagon Alley, waiting for Tonks to bring him her weekly update on the activities of the Auror Office, when a familiar voice hailed him.

Alfred Bones was the much older half-brother of Edgar and Amelia Bones, whom Remus had known in the First War, and the uncle of a certain Carrie Bones, whom he had known at Hogwarts. He was a research healer at St. Mungo's, where he explored rare magical diseases and conditions. When Remus was seventeen, Dumbledore had imported Alfred Bones to give a short course of lectures on experimental potions at Hogwarts. Remus had greeted this news with profound indifference, but Lily enthused about Healer Bones and dragged James and Remus to every lecture, as well as a couple of highly intellectual tea parties in the potions study. By the time Bones departed, Remus had developed a keen appreciation of his gruff good nature, if not of his intellectual pioneering. When the Wolfsbane Potion first became available, Remus had sought him out and listened with gratitude for two hours as Bones explained the potion's composition and effects in words of one syllable.

"How are you doing, Remus?" asked Healer Bones. "I haven't often seen you hanging around ice cream parlors. Not even as a young buck."

"Just waiting for a friend," Remus explained. "Have you seen a young witch, probably in rather wrinkly robes, with pink hair? Or possibly blue hair? Or violet?"

Bones did a double-take. "You know Nymphadora Tonks?"

"You know her too?"

"She was one of the brightest students I ever taught. She would have been a natural for healing, of course, but she seemed absolutely set on becoming an Auror."

"She's a marvelous Auror," said Remus loyally.

"I can well imagine it. She's a living marvel, that girl."

Remus grinned. "With pink hair."

"Exactly," said Healer Bones. "With pink hair."

* * *

Author note: Hmm . . . do you want to know who Carrie Boneswas? Read my story, "Carrie." It's very short!


	3. A Daughter of the House of Black

**Chapter 3: A Daughter of the House of Black**

Grimmauld Place was not, perhaps, the most restful environment for a weary man stealing hours of relaxation between bone-searing transformations and the shadowing of Death Eaters. Even after the six rambunctious teenagers returned to school, the house reverberated from basement to attic with rousing retorts and whispered confabulation, fist-pounding arguments and raucous laughter. In the entrance hall, the portrait of Sirius's mother bellowed reprimands at every half-breed and half-blood who crossed the threshold. In the master bedroom, Buckbeak snorted at visitors and tapped his hooves on the wooden floor. In the kitchen, Molly dished up savory stews and Tonks spilled them across the Order's master schedule, swept them up, and spilled them again as Mad-Eye Moody stumped around and poked his wand savagely at suspicious objects (once inadvertently stabbing Bill, who was trying to kiss Fleur Delacour good night by means of Floo powder and the fireplace). Kreacher lurked in dark corners, competing with Mundungus Fletcher for the possession of _objets _dark and decrepit beyond belief. Remus, tucked beneath blankets in his attic bedroom, presiding over the assembled Order in the dining room, reading lazily before the kitchen fire, merely smiled. The Order was reunited; the Order was enjoying its reunion, gay and rowdy and exhilarating; for the first time since he resigned from Hogwarts, he felt as if he had been reunited with a purpose in life.

Sirius steamed about his parents, Molly twittered of her children. Remus, brushing a quill absent-mindedly against his nose, remembered his own parents: his delicate, careworn mother, of a wizarding house once prominent but now impoverished and almost vanished amid a tangle of marriages with Crouches and Longbottoms; his bookish, bearded, Muggle-born father, who worked in complementary healing at St. Mungo's and who had, so many years before, given his stamp of approval to the experiments that had produced the first, utterly ineffective form of the Wolfsbane Potion. Remus had been a late and unlooked-for child, born to middle-aged parents who had already lost one son in infancy. How proudly his mother had claimed maternity leave from her modest position in the Department of International Magical Cooperation! How wearily, with what cold and aching despair, she had, a few years later, claimed another leave, to care for a toddler son almost too young to survive a werewolf bite! Well, he had survived, and she had had the pleasure of seeing her bookish, sickly son grow up, amid the darkening clouds of Voldemort's ascent, a passionate partisan of Albus Dumbledore. She had had the anguish of watching this son risk his life on behalf of the Order, the double anguish of seeing him lose each of his few friends, one after another, to madness, death, or betrayal. She died soon after the First War, full of years by Muggle standards, still young by those of the wizarding world. Remus's father, who had taken a profound interest in the treatment of werewolves before it became a matter of personal import to him, had survived her by a decade. He died six months before St. Mungo's certified the Wolfsbane Potion, a year before Remus achieved his longed-for position as a professor at Hogwarts.

Teasing, angry voices invaded the kitchen from the stairwell.

"I am _not _a daughter of the House of Black! Stop treating me like I'm my mother, Sirius."

"She's a mighty fine witch, Andromeda. A mighty fine-looking witch, too."

"Her looks are more in evidence than her magical powers these days."

"Why don't you invite her to dinner? Your father, too. Surely I'm allowed to see a few—"

"_Not_ a good idea, Sirius. You know perfectly well that Dumbledore would never permit it."

"You know, Tonks, saintly though you are in other respects, your stubbornness is highly characteristic of a daughter of the House . . ."

"Sirius, will you please_ stop_ referring to me as a daughter of the House of Black?"

"Well, it's a good lesson for Kreacher." Sirius tossed his handsome black mane of hair and went out, whistling "Toujours Pur" under his breath.

Tonks slumped down in a chair and muttered, "What a pest. He had a crush on my mother when he was about _ten_, and of course _she_ liked being teased about being a daughter of the House of Black."

Remus shifted uncomfortably. "But surely your mother can't have been much of a daughter of the House of Black if she—er—ran off with your father?"

"Oh, she had plenty of opportunity to be a daughter of the House of Black in the nineteen years before she married him," said Tonks bitterly. She sighed. "It's not her fault. She was brought up that way. Not here, of course—the other property." She added, answering the question on Remus's face, "There's a country house in Yorkshire. A Cyclops at the gatehouse, charmed locks that nip the fingers off intruders, sixteen bedrooms, and a fleet of house elves. It's Unplottable and Undetectable, that's why you've never heard of it. It's supposed to be one of the oldest wizarding homes in Great Britain."

"Sounds charming."

"Yes. That's where my grandparents brought up their three little pureblood princesses: Bella was 'the dark one'—she was always fascinated by the Dark Arts—my mother, Andi, was 'the pretty one'—not that her sisters were plain— and Cissy was 'the baby.' The three of them sat around all through the long winter evenings reading tea leaves and charming each other's hair and setting the Cyclops on the house elves, like sisters in some Muggle fairy tale. Bella was very bossy, and my mother was always a little afraid of her, but otherwise I think she enjoyed it."

"What happened, then?"

"She grew up. She came home from Hogwarts, and that was it. Cissy was still at school and Bella was already married. Her parents wouldn't let her work; and there was nothing to do at home, on account of all the house elves. She was supposed to wait for her parents to introduce her to some nice pureblood boys, but they had a hard time finding any—Blacks usually marry in the family, and there weren't many available wizards just then. So she sat around and twiddled her thumbs and plotted escape. She snuck out via the fireplace and went to a pub in Diagon Alley, and that's where she met my father. They eloped a week later. It made the front page of the _Daily Prophet_. A daughter of the House of Black and the son of a Muggle ship fitter from Liverpool."

"Your grandparents must have been angry."

Tonks raised one pink eyebrow. "An understatement," she said drily. "They threatened all sorts of retribution—blasting her off the family tree was the least of it. The day my parents moved into their first home, they saw something smoking in the sky overhead. I think it must have been a primitive version of the Dark Mark. There was a boggart in every closet, thoughtfully left by the welcoming committee, and some sort of illegal crossbred snake slithering in the kitchen drain. Bella tried to hex her so she wouldn't have children—but that didn't work. For a few years, my mother thought it had. She was so happy when she found out she was pregnant, and then when I was born, she thought the hex was manifesting itself in another form."

"What do you mean?"

Tonks tapped her hair and screwed up her face. Her hair turned green. A minute later, it was pink again.

"Not a very tragic hex," commented Remus lightly.

"Well, she thought it was. She's been shy around magic ever since. Doesn't do anything but household spells. She always says she wishes she could put a couple of charms on me—one not-wrinkling-tearing-or-tripping-over-robes charm and one not-dropping-things-in-the-kitchen charm—but either she hasn't tried, or they haven't worked."

Remus laughed and Tonks laughed too.

"Actually, it wasn't just me. It was the war. You-Know—well," she paused and took a deep breath. "_Voldemort_ started his rise to power just about the time my parents got married. A coincidence, needless to say. But my mother thought the First War was half her own fault, for annoying Bella and ruining Cissy's life."

"How did she ruin Cissy's life?"

"By running away. After she eloped, my grandparents watched Cissy like a hawk. They pulled her out of Hogwarts a year early, before she took her NEWTs, and locked her up in Yorkshire just like they had locked up my mother. Cissy didn't have the nerve to cut and run. That's why she married late—it took my grandparents ten years to find a wizard whose lineage was sufficiently pure."

"Surely your mother recognizes that Cissy had a choice."

"Well—maybe. I'm not sure. My mother was a peppery girl and a jolly good witch; Cissy was always a follower. Actually, my mother's got much better magical abilities than my father does, but she doesn't use them anymore, except for cleaning the house and patching my robes. Growing up with Bella, she got this sort of conviction that anyone with too much magic ability was more or less bound to go wrong."

"Not all the purebloods became Death Eaters," objected Remus. "The Weasleys, the Longbottoms?"

"Well, my mother was raised to believe that the Blacks were the crème de la crème, and she never gave up that idea. When the First War came, all the best witches and wizards in the Black family—except Sirius—joined the Death Eaters. That confirmed her impression that the gifted tend to abuse their abilities. When Sirius was arraigned on thirteen murder charges, that sealed it for her. I got straight Os on my OWLs, and she hated it—kept saying she wanted an ordinary daughter. She hated it when I morphed, too, so I did most of my morphing at school."

"What did she say when you became an Auror?"

Tonks lifted her head and said, in fluid, tragic, pleading tones, "'Why?'"

"So why _did _you become an Auror?"

"Muggle killings."

Remus did some quick math in his head. "I don't remember any Muggle killings just then, when you were finishing up at Hogwarts."

Tonks laughed. "No, no. I was seven. We were staying with my father's parents in Liverpool. We used to go stay several times a year, and I loved it. It was magical—"

Remus smiled faintly.

Tonks realized what she was saying. "In the Muggle sense. Escapators and eckeltricity, as Arthur would say. It was fascinating. And lots of cousins and second cousins and next-door neighbors dropping in. Not like home, where none of our relatives was speaking to us. Then one day a building collapsed down by the docks and some friends of my grandparents were killed. We had to go home suddenly, three days earlier than planned. As soon as we stepped out of the fireplace, my mother started screaming about Death Eaters. My father wasn't there; he had gone to the Ministry, even though it was the middle of the night, to do some emergency liaising with the Muggles. My mother put me to bed in the basement under an invisibility cloak and put about three dozen imperturbability charms on the house—knowing, of course, that they wouldn't really help. And then I realized, for the first time, that it was my own aunts and uncles who were responsible for half the strange things that had been happening. It didn't click for me until it invaded my Muggle world—then it just seemed obscene."

Tonks paused and took a deep breath. "My mother is a decent witch, really, she is. Better not to use your powers at all than to use them for ill. And she would never do that. But she does—miss things. Not the Dark Magic, but being a daughter of the House of Black. The money. The status. The Gringotts' elf—"

"I thought that Gringotts' vaults were staffed entirely by goblins."

"They are, with one exception. My grandparents have a house elf stationed in their vault round the clock, to guard their special heirlooms. That's the kind of cachet my mother misses. For a long time, she went around telling her friends that her Muggle father-in-law was 'in shipping,' as if he owned the White Star Line."


	4. The Boggart in the Attic

**Chapter 4: The Boggart in the Attic**

The autumn wore on, frosty and relentless. The Death Eaters flitted about, talking much but—apparently—doing little. Remus endured bitter conferences with Severus Snape, only to learn that he had discovered nothing either. The Order's round-the-clock guard in the bowels of the Ministry continued; as the months crept by without event, Remus grew uneasy. Being a werewolf had always made Remus peculiarly sensitive to the passage of time.

Sirius felt like a shut-in. He said so, loudly and frequently, to anyone he could catch. When there was no one, he drank fire-whiskey and fumed at the portraits on the walls. Molly and Arthur had gone home to the Burrow. The Hogwarts faculty members were immersed in their classes and their silent campaign against Dolores Umbridge. Kingsley Shacklebolt was immersed in complex and troubling machinations within the Auror Office. Bill Weasley was immersed in the internal politics of Gringotts ("Wish we could freeze the Death Eaters' bank accounts, that's what Muggles do, but gold passes everywhere and tells no tale.") and the alluring charms of Fleur Delacour. Mad-Eye Moody appeared at odd hours, ate odd meals (rum-soaked bananas, haggis, and waffles) that he conjured himself from thin air, and disappeared as abruptly as he came. At Hogwarts, the children were organizing an illegal Defense against the Dark Arts class under Dolores Umbridge's pudgy pink nose. Remus welcomed this news, not least because it gave him a neutral topic of conversation with Sirius. It was practically the only thing that Sirius could speak cheerfully about.

Tonks dropped in often. She made toast, burnt it ("Just a little too much wand action, I guess—I never had a light enough touch for household spells!"), and flicked it at Sirius, who was growling moodily at the unstickable charms that kept his ancestors' portraits fastened to the living room walls. Sirius pulled his wand and flicked toast back at her until the portraits of Phineas Nigellus Black and Aunt Elladora were dripping butter on the doxy-infested sofa.

"Nasty little blood traitor babies, ruining my mistress's handsome portraits of the handsome, handsome scions of the House of Black," complained Kreacher, drifting through.

"Clean 'em up, Kreacher," ordered Sirius. "I don't want my great-great-grandpa Phineas popping up in Dumbledore's office looking like he just stepped out of a micro-wand oven!"

"How is the cleaning going?" asked Tonks.

Sirius made a face.

"Sirius has done a lot," said Remus diplomatically. "The portraits and the family tree won't come off the walls, of course, and there's still the box room in the attic. That's all."

"I'll come over on Sunday and do the box room," offered Tonks.

"Thanks! You can keep Sirius company while I'm away."

"Oh, is it full moon again? Already?"

Remus nodded ruefully. No matter how much reason persuaded him that the full moon came at regular, predictable intervals, he felt it had been coming much too often this year. Scarcely was one transformation over but he was on the potion again. It was always "already."

Sirius tossed off his fire-whiskey and hiccupped. "I am not a baby, you two. No one needs to keep me company when Moony is away. And there's no reason why Tonks should get stuck cleaning the attic. She's got a real job, _and_ guard duty, and I'm a bloody useless housekeeper—"

"—who after nearly six months in Grimmauld Place hasn't got around to cleaning out the attic. I will see you on Sunday, and I will be expecting you to make me brunch."

"Don't bother, Tonks," said Sirius. Remus fidgeted uncomfortably. He recognized this mood of Sirius's, and he did not like it, but so far, he believed, he had gotten the worst of it. He did not like seeing Sirius take out his frustrations on Tonks.

"What, you two like living in a pig-sty?"

"Well, I spent a winter living in a cave and eating rats. And Remus has lived in the Shrieking Shack."

"If you like living in caves and eating rats, that's your business. I don't think Remus should have to live in a shack any more than necessary."

"Damn right I shouldn't," said Remus.

Sirius raised his eyebrows. "Moony, Moony! I've never heard a prefect swear."

Remus smiled. "Wait till Ron comes back from Hogwarts."

Sirius grimaced. "Ron isn't coming here. None of them are coming. Even Harry—"

"—looked like he had won the lottery when we rescued him from the Dursleys last summer and told him we were bringing him here. Stop complaining, Sirius, you're lucky to have him for a godson. Take care of yourself, Remus, and you'll come back to a clean attic on Sunday."

* * *

When Remus returned from his transformation, the house was still—so still, he feared for a moment that Sirius had taken advantage of his absence to flee on some bold and reckless mission. Feverish and sore, he made himself a sandwich and ate it absent-mindedly, staring at an outdated copy of the _Daily Prophet_. As he crept past the living room, he saw—with mixed anger and relief—that Sirius was asleep on a sofa, snoring lightly and clutching an empty whiskey bottle. Remus climbed the stairs to bed.

The door to the rambling attic box room was ajar. Remus peaked inside, thinking to surprise Tonks—for there she was, her slender back and spiky pink hair-do turned to the door—when a bizarre sight arrested him. Hovering in mid-air, writhing and fidgeting, he saw a baby, perhaps three months old, with pale skin and mousy brown hair. Even as he watched, the baby's hair turned red, then blonde; its limbs seemed to expand and contract uncontrollably. Tonks stood transfixed, watching the baby, and Remus, three yards behind her, was likewise captivated. The baby turned black, and then it turned red, and then it turned green. Its bloated limbs grew and writhed even as its face remained crunched and infantile.

"Riddikulus!" shouted Tonks. Suddenly, the green, troll-like baby reined in its frantic contortions and began to dance the Charleston. A minute later, the figure had resumed its original face and form. It continued to dance the Charleston as Tonks stepped forward, wand in hand, and forced it back into the dilapidated filing cabinet from which, Remus presumed, it had emerged. Slamming the door shut, she leaned against it, half-giggling, half-sobbing, brushing her hair out of her eyes with her wand.

Remus stood helplessly, half hidden by the door. He remembered Molly's boggart last summer, remembered rushing into the living room and taking charge as Molly sobbed over the phantom dead bodies on the floor. Now he felt something of the same impulse to comfort Tonks. But she had not asked for him; she had not needed him; she had conquered the boggart herself. And what was this boggart anyway? Remus had no idea. He felt as if he had just witnessed something profoundly intimate and secret—something, perhaps, that Tonks would not have wanted him to see. Softly, as if on stocking-feet, he backed away from the door.

In his dim attic bedroom, Remus undressed and climbed into bed. He stared at the ceiling and thought about Tonks. Funny, he thought, she talks and banters with Sirius all the time, and I sit and listen, and she probably knows me better than I know her. Funny how one man's meat is another man's poison. Tonks is so _good_ with children—Ginny, Hermione— Harry—why would she be afraid of babies? Why?

Remus had known since childhood, since before he could remember, that he was unlikely ever to have children of his own. He had grown up facing this knowledge as mutely and as consciously as adolescent girls face the fact of their own impending fertility. Ironically, inevitably—for the nature of life seemed to be that it sprang one cruel joke after another—children and indeed babies had become objects of longing for him. Brunette, blonde, red-haired . . . white, black, even, he supposed sheepishly, green . . . Of course, he was also a little afraid of babies, but for him that made sense. He was a sick man, afraid of abandoning a baby, afraid of biting it, afraid of savaging it. Tonks could have no such fears.

Maybe, he thought sagely, slightly appalled at his own intrusiveness, maybe there is some sexual anxiety at issue here. Maybe she fears babies because she fears her childbearing capacity, which would disrupt her career . . . chasten her high spirits and taint the thrills of danger . . . cause her to lose control over the body over which she has hitherto exercised such an unusual degree of control. Maybe her rejection of babies is a rejection of her femininity, maybe she has developed a mental block against babies for the same reason she has developed that amusing mental block against cooking and household spells. Maybe her rejection of babies is a rejection of her mother, whose very name seems to make her uncomfortable. Funny, though, the things that people fear. Tonks would make such a good mother, if she only knew it. Tonks is so good with children . . .

As the now waning moon moved slowly across the horizon, Remus fell into a heavy, numbing slumber, thinking, "but Tonks is so _good_ with children . . ."


	5. What If

**Chapter 5: What If**

He was stepping into the phone booth when she appeared. "You heard?" she cried, running towards him down the tawdry London side street, a slim figure with unnaturally red hair. She practically threw herself into his arms. "Merlin, Remus, you heard?"

His heart jumped in horror and embarrassed delight. He steadied her and held her at an arm's length. "What happened?"

"You didn't hear? Arthur . . ." She inhaled, blinking back tears.

"What happened?"

She dropped her voice so low he could scarcely hear it. "It—in the Ministry—it attacked Arthur last night."

He blanched.

"My parents—my mother has a portrait of Phineas Nigellus Black in her dining room. The portrait told me. He said—covered in blood—but Molly sent a note he was still alive. Harry saw something—I don't understand. I just came to tell the Auror Office where I am, I'm going to make Scrimgeour let me take the day off." She dropped her voice still lower. "Oh, Merlin, Remus, it was supposed to be me! I was assigned to guard duty last night, I was supposed to be there, but I was tired, I couldn't handle staying up all night again, and Arthur said—and we switched. Remus, it was supposed to be me!"

* * *

They sat in the ugly neutral-toned tearoom on the fifth floor of St. Mungo's. Before them, two teaspoons, two saucers, two cups of tea. Healer Smethwyck had said he would summon them when he finished working on Arthur. It was taking a long time.

What had Harry seen, wondered Remus. Fragments of conversations, stretching back over months and years, arranged themselves in his mind. What Dumbledore had said last summer—not wanting to see too much of Harry—not trusting—not knowing the full implications of that lightning-shaped scar . . .

"Would it have mattered if it had been me?" mused Tonks, more to the window blinds than to him.

"Yes," said Remus indignantly.

Tonks seemed not to hear him. "I could so easily just not have been here . . ."

"Tonks, what are you talking about?" asked Remus, suddenly uneasy.

She snapped to attention. "I—oh, well—never mind."

"Tonks?"

"Remus, you don't need to know." Her lips closed tensely, then parted again. "Look, there's Bill!"

Bill saw them and strode up to them, tugging at his fang earring, tired but calm. "Dad's going to be okay," he said. "He's asleep. You can't see him right now. Come back this afternoon, if you can. Actually, if one of you can go back to headquarters after lunch and collect the kids—they need a guard—"

"I'll do it," said Tonks quickly.

"Thanks," said Bill. "Thanks, you two. Thanks for being here."

* * *

He didn't tell her but he should have. He was twenty-two years old. It was the final year of the First War. He and Sirius were partners then, flying more than one daring mission. There was one particularly bold assignment they had undertaken. It was just before James and Lily went into hiding with their baby son. At the last minute, plans were changed, the mission postponed. No one seemed to be able to tell Remus why. The new date was the night of the full moon, and of course, he couldn't go. Gideon and Fabian Prewett took their places. They apparated straight into a nest of Death Eaters.

The night he discovered Sirius in the Shrieking Shack, he realized what had happened. All in a flash. Everyone suspected, everyone knew there was a traitor. Everyone knew someone close to James and Lily was passing information to Voldemort. Everyone thought he was the traitor. So they took him off the best assignments, they took him off the things that mattered. If they had trusted him, he would have been dead. If he hadn't been a werewolf.

A single phrase came unbidden to his mind. _He had a hard war_. Thus had John Lupin, who grew up in a Muggle family in a Muggle village during the fearsome Muggle war of 1914-1918, characterized his own father. _My father was a good man_. _He had a hard war_.

This expression had puzzled the child Remus. Weren't all wars hard, he wanted to know? And what, exactly, had made his grandfather's own personal war so hard? He had been a Healer, hadn't he, a—whatchamacallit—medic? And though he had been under fire more than once, he had never even been wounded. Nor bitten. What was so hard about that?

The child Remus had not thought to ask for details of his father's sad and somber childhood. He had not thought to ask why his grandparents' marriage broke up so suddenly, just as his father was departing for Hogwarts. He had not thought to ask why John Lupin had no living relatives, aside from his parents and two younger sisters. The probable truth came to him unasked for, from experience and not from his father, when he was about twenty-three. At the time his mother was dying and he had not wanted to injure his father's fragile peace by fingering old wounds.

It was a family tradition of sorts. Bookish men, quiet men, fighting, seldom dying, coming home with scars. John Lupin himself, youngish and as yet unmarried, had been an ambulatory Healer in the Grindelwald War, apparating onto battle scenes, treating fighters too injured to be transported to St. Mungo's. It must have been around then, Remus thought, that he had gotten interested in werewolves.

Remus wondered now if there was more to his father's story than he had imagined then. Not just death, but double-crossing. Certainly, his father had taken Sirius's apostasy harder than anything else that had happened in all those hard years.

Me too, thought Remus, stirring his cold tea. Me too. I had a hard war.


	6. Stepping Out

**Chapter 6: Stepping Out**

On the day that Hogwarts's Christmas vacation ended, Tonks turned up in grey hair and tweeds to escort the Weasleys, Harry, and Hermione back to school. She had been experimenting with older looks a lot lately; she always ended up looking like an ingénue of sixty-two. And, Remus reflected, that was probably exactly what she would be at sixty-two. An elderly ingénue with a disarming intelligence and alternately pink and grey hair.

They stumbled off the Knight Bus, which hurtled away, bade the children goodbye, and watched them till the castle doors shut securely behind them.

"Come for a drink at the Three Broomsticks?" said Tonks. They had recently fallen into the habit of going for drinks at wizarding pubs, where they analyzed the Order's next move in sparsely coded language, far away from Sirius's jocular interruptions and the vocal and contradictory anxieties of Molly and Mad-Eye. Remus invariably spent these evenings scanning the pub nervously for spies and wishing that he, like Mad-Eye, could see out of the back of his head. Fortunately he and Tonks seemed to understand each other's half-finished sentences and allusive code names just fine.

At the Three Broomsticks, they ordered butterbeer and took a table near the back.

"To a safe term at Hogwarts!" toasted Remus.

"May Harry, Ron, and Ginny be bored out of their minds!" toasted Tonks.

"What about Hermione?"

"Hermione will be studying for OWLs. The great thing about being a swot is that you never get bored."

"I'm sure you learned that by experience."

"The experience of watching you walk around with your nose in a book for the last six months. Sirius told me you don't even stop reading when you're doing spells."

Remus smiled. "Did Sirius tell you that I put an Impervius charm on the _Daily Prophet_ so that I could read it in the shower?"

"You read in the shower?"

"No, actually, but it's one of his favorite stories."

"Sirius needs to get out more."

Remus raised his eyebrows. "Don't say that in front of him. Molly told me he tried to go visit Arthur at St. Mungo's—as Snuffles, of course. It would have been a disaster, after his being seen on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters last fall."

"I know. But sometimes I worry that Sirius's staying indoors will be just as fatal."

Remus put down his butterbeer. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you've known him longer than I have. But I think frustration is coloring his judgment. It's not like he's getting to do anything exciting at Grimmauld Place—if he had some real indoor work to take his mind off—but he doesn't. He just feels like he's in prison again."

"Sirius always liked adventure," said Remus slowly. "And he never minded risk. Actually he liked risk. He—well, he put others in harm's way as well as himself."

"Yes," said Tonks. "I know what you mean. Bright as he is, brave as he is, he wouldn't be my first choice of partner for a dangerous mission." Her eyes danced on Remus. "But I think maybe his recklessness is his strength. Maybe we should let him use it sometime. His judgment's not improving from sitting around locked up in Grimmauld Place."

"His temper's not improving, either," muttered Remus under his breath.

Tonks looked at him searchingly.

"Not that I'm complaining," he added with a smile. "I—after James and Lily died, after Sirius was taken to Azkaban, I never imagined I'd see him again. I never imagined that I would_ want_ to see him again. I tried to bury every memory I had of him—though I've never been good at getting rid of unwanted memories. When we realized it was Peter, not Sirius—I felt like he had come back from the dead, and part of my own past with him."

"But sometimes he's rather wearing company."

"Well, as you said, he feels like he's in prison. Especially when everyone else has gone home, and he has to make do with me and Kreacher."

"He had an awful fit of the sullens last week," said Tonks. "Why don't you take an evening off from him now and then?"

"I do," said Remus. "I go to libraries." Tonks laughed. "And bookstores. Seriously. When I moved in with Sirius, he offered me two rooms, one for me and one for the books."

"Don't you sometimes want to be around other people?"

Remus hesitated. Solitude was the penalty—one of the penalties— for being a werewolf. "I don't entirely trust myself around other people," he said slowly. "Especially those who don't know about my condition. It's often easier to be alone." He paused. "It was different at Hogwarts. Sirius and James were like family."

"A family of unregistered Animagi," grinned Tonks.

"Right. And now I have a family consisting of the Boy Who Lived, a Muggle-born genius, seven red-headed rascals, and one large black dog."

"I'm madly in love with the Weasleys," said Tonks, with an edge in her voice that took Remus by surprise.

"So am I. But you've got parents and siblings and whatnot of your own, haven't you?"

"Parents, yes. You've heard about them. No siblings, and half my mother's family are Death Eaters. We don't see much of each other," she added dryly.

Remus looked at her, wheels turning in his head. He realized, now, that he had seldom heard Tonks refer affectionately to any relatives other than her Muggle grandparents in Liverpool. She didn't talk about friends much, either. In fact, she didn't allude to any recreations other than morphing for Ginny and Hermione at Molly's Sunday night dinners. He had never realized quite how much Grimmauld Place and the Order must mean to her.

"Cheer up, Remus," said Tonks, interrupting his reverie. "It's not that bad. My father's cousins are decent. They don't know I'm a witch. They're under the impression that I work for a fantasy magazine and get my hair dyed once a month at a hippie beauty parlor in the East End, and they think I'm absolutely nuts, but they always take me in for the holidays."

"Must be restful."

"It would be restful for _you_ to spend an evening on something other than work, Sirius, or a bookstore. Otherwise you'll go mad."

Remus grimaced. He was, in fact, privately afraid of going mad. The suicide rate among werewolves was high. Work and Weasleys seemed like the best insurance against it. Of course, Tonks partook of both these things, and she did know about his condition.

Aloud, against his better judgment, he said slowly, "There's a concert at the Leaky Cauldron on Saturday night. Melliflua Mandolo is charming a piano, a flute, and a set of cowbells. It sounds dreadful. Do you want to go?"

* * *

On Saturday night it was snowing. Tonks apparated into Diagon Alley, slipped on a thin layer of ice, skidded, and fell flat on her face, snowflakes staining her hair like a thousand tiny stars. Remus (having told Sirius he was going to Flourish & Blotts and arrived twenty minutes early in order to make that not be a misrepresentation) chuckled and pulled Tonks to her feet, dusting the snow from her robes. She steadied herself and teasingly tried to brush the flecks of grey from his hair.

In the Leaky Cauldron, it was dark and noisy. Fresh faces, months out of Hogwarts, whispering over mead; middle-aged witches in garish robes, applauding loudly as Melliflua Mandolo demonstrated her experimental charms and deplored the state of musical education in the wizarding world; in the corner, an ungainly troll tapping a huge webbed foot out of time and grunting to himself. Tonks took one look around and burst out laughing.

"I told you it would be dreadful," said Remus.

"It's wonderful," said Tonks. "I've never seen anything like it."

"Come on! You grew up in the wizarding world. You saw scenes like this every Hogsmeade weekend."

Tonks shook her head. "Daylight, gaggles of fourteen-year-olds, no music, no mead, and hardly any trolls."

"Haven't your post-Hogwarts boyfriends taken you to pub concerts?"

"No such persons." Remus raised his eyebrows. "Not surprising, really. I went straight into Auror training, where there was very little free time and not many men my age. Boys my own age never paid much attention to me anyway." Remus made an indeterminate gesture with his chin. "They liked me, I think—you know, very nice, very clever, but definitely weird. A tomboy and a Metamorphmagus to boot."

"Why would anyone mind your being a Metamorphmagus?" exclaimed Remus, dusting the last few snowflakes from her hair, which tonight was tawny brown and wavy, much as his own had been before it started to grey.

"Oh. Well, it's very unusual, and there's sort of an If-I-can't-recognize-you-I-can't-trust-you syndrome. Part of it was my own fault. I played around with morphing a lot at Hogwarts. I used to do really absurd things, like reverse my feet and add a sixth finger. Now, unless I'm disguising myself for work, I mostly just do hair."

Remus gazed appraisingly at Tonks, shutting out Melliflua Mandolo's raucously charmed cowbells. It baffled him that any eighteen-year-old boy could have failed to find this woman attractive.


	7. Muggle Interludes

**Chapter 7: Muggle Interludes**

If Remus asked himself—as he did more than once in the ensuing weeks—what his intentions were towards Tonks, he had a number of comforting answers at his fingertips. He was improving his acquaintance with a valuable new colleague. He was improving his knowledge of both the wizarding and Muggle worlds (for Tonks evinced great curiosity about the latter) by judiciously sampling what each had to offer. He was refreshing his mind through healthy diversions, for he had to acknowledge the justice of Tonks's allegation that he had hitherto known few diversions other than Molly's Sunday night suppers at Grimmauld Place. And last but not least, he was doing a good deed, for it now appeared that Tonks was in much the same boat and equally in need of diversion. After the prison break, after the flight of the wizard who slew the Prewetts, the witch who tortured the Longbottoms, they all needed something to feel happy about. He wanted her to be happy.

Sirius had, from the first, expressed skepticism about whether bookstores remained open until 12:30 in the morning. In the course of his explorations, Remus discovered a bookstore in Muggle London, Waterstone's by name, that was in fact open until midnight. He helped himself to several of the store's bookmarks (on which the hours were printed) and left them around Number 12, Grimmauld Place, in spots where he thought Sirius might notice them. Remus kept one for himself; the notion of a bookstore that remained open until midnight retained a certain allure.

Tonks wanted to see a Muggle Library, so Remus took her to the British National Library, where she marveled alike at the architecture and the Muggle's absurd ideas about what needed to put in the restricted section.

"Fourteenth-century," she scoffed. "Surely anyone could repair those old books with a flick of her—!"

"Tonks!" Remus said warningly, as a Muggle family of five passed them, staring.

She pulled his sleeve and laughingly whispered, "fingers" in his ear.

Tonks also insisted on going to see a Muggle grocery store, where she manipulated the automatic checkout machine with a dexterity that amazed Remus, and a Muggle laundromat, where she laundered her own and Remus's robes laboriously in two loud, swishing machines. Tonks watched the robes' perambulations through the glass doors of the washer and dryer with a look of such ecstatic concentration that Remus felt sure the Muggles were staring. As Tonks removed the robes from the dryer, an elderly Muggle, slightly lame, limped up to Remus and said, with his eyes revolving between the black bundle in Tonks's arms and her pink hair, "You lot actors or something?"

"Oh—um, er, yes. We're staging an amateur production of _Macbeth_," said Remus quickly.

"Thought so," grunted the Muggle amiably. He limped away as Tonks stifled her giggles on the sleeve of a freshly laundered robe.

Remus often wondered what the Muggles made of them, shabby and awkward-looking as they were and mismatched in age to boot. He did, he hoped, still look too young to be Tonks's father, while at the same time he was obviously too old to be brother or boyfriend. At least Tonks was beginning to choose more conservative hair tints for her forays into Muggle society—if one could call Weasley red a conservative tint. Once he persuaded her to leave her hair in its natural, mousy brown state, which made her look oddly naked. Surveying Tonks in her Muggle attire, which outlined the curves of breast and hip so much more emphatically than wizarding robes did, Remus could almost imagine her naked. He did not, of course, want Tonks to know that he was imagining her naked; she wouldn't like that at all. But Remus had grown from boyhood to manhood in the knowledge that werewolves could not marry, and he was inclined to think there was not much harm in imagining as long as he never acted on it and Tonks never knew.

* * *

Tonks wanted to make him dinner. For this purpose she invited Remus to her modest three-room flat in Hogsmeade, the ground floor of a building too dilapidated to be occupied in its upper story. She had planned an ambitious menu consisting of matar paneer, dal, naan, basmati rice, and mango ice. It was clear from the sounds within, when Remus arrived, that things were already going wrong.

"Come in!" called Tonks merrily. "It's not charmed!"

Remus opened the door, and a round of naan hit him squarely in the face. It was buttery and hot to the touch.

"Sorry, Remus, I was just trying to puff them up a bit, I guess I got carried away with my wand—" Tonks gestured helplessly at half a dozen rounds of naan zooming briskly around the living room like miniature flying saucers. On the stove, a cauldron of peas and paneer was stirring itself merrily and a little over-zealously; every ten seconds or so, a cube of cheese shot straight up into the air, hovered for a moment, and then plunked back down into the cauldron, spraying tomato sauce on the kitchen counters. Beside it, a pot of dal was clearly becoming jealous; as Remus watched, a string of lentils shot up like a geyser and started assaulting the paneer cubes. It looked for all the world like a game of Gobstones, suspended in mid-air.

"Behave yourself!" muttered Tonks, flicking her wand testily at the dal, which retreated to its own pot and belched grumpily. "The lentils won't stay put and let themselves cook, they're going to be rock hard when everything else is done . . . I never did have the knack of disciplining food, I've never seen beans act up for my mother—"

"You know," said Remus mildly, "if we were Muggles, we'd just go for pizza."

Tonks greeted this suggestion with such an excess of relieved enthusiasm that Remus had to remind her to conceal her wand and collect her Muggle purse before departing. She then announced they would perform the pizza run "authentically," which involved apparating into Diagon Alley, sneaking out the front door of the Leaky Cauldron, and transversing the cold, foggy streets of London until they identified a pizza parlor. For added authenticity, Tonks refused to enter the pizza parlor directly but instead noted the telephone number, walked on two blocks to a Muggle phone booth, and placed a call, "because that's how Muggles do it. They don't just show up, they ring first. I've seen my grandfather do this a dozen times."

Remus's stomach was growling with hunger by the time Tonks hung up, announcing delightedly that the pizza would be ready in twenty minutes—"and really that's quite remarkable, Molly could do it quicker of course, but I don't think_ I_ could prepare a pizza in twenty minutes _with_ magic." She offered to summon a bag of peanuts from the bar of the Leaky Cauldron to tide Remus over, but between the security breach and Tonks's way with food, he thought it safer to wait.

"Thanks, Tonks," he said.

"Thanks for not being able to cook?"

"Thanks for making me get out of Grimmauld Place occasionally for something other than guard duty and shadowing Death Eaters. You're one of the only bright spots in this war we're about to have."

Tonks turned slightly pink in the foggy lamplight, but all she said was, "I would have said the war was already happening, myself."

"No," said Remus quietly. "Sooner or later the Death Eaters will start working systematically, Voldemort will come out in the open, and the Ministry will have to acknowledge what's happened. And everything will get much worse. You have no idea."

"I can remember the last war, you know, Remus. I have some idea."

"I'm sorry, Tonks. I didn't mean to talk to you as if you were a child. It's just—you were eight years old when James and Lily were killed, when Sirius went to Azkaban. Somehow I can't seem to forget that."

"I was already studying to be an Auror when Sirius went to Azkaban."

Remus smiled warily.

"I'm serious. I sent an owl for the pamphlet when I was seven—not saying how old I was, of course—and then I used to study in bed at night when I was supposed to be asleep. I snuck my father's old wand from his dresser, he never noticed it was missing—and it was perfectly good for _lumos_ spells, though it wasn't good for much else."

"What an enterprising child you were!"

"Then, when I got older, I used to baby-sit for Neville Longbottom in the Hogwarts vacations—"

"You know the Longbottoms?"

"We know all the really old pureblood families. My mother likes the Longbottoms. I would put Neville to sleep with a bunch of silly morphs—we had a little song about it, actually—and then I had free run of the library until Mrs. Longbottom came home. Or sometimes, even before he went to sleep—if he got tired of the morphs, I would read to him . . ."

"You read Auror training manuals to Neville Longbottom?"

"For a six-year-old, he had unusual taste in literature." Tonks pursed her lips. "All those blasted aunts and uncles of his, telling him he was almost a Squib—he didn't believe he would ever be able to work any of the spells we read about, but he used to fantasize about my doing them. I couldn't actually try them out until I got back to school, of course. It was very frustrating for me. I used to feel ready to burst by the first of September."

Remus shook his head slowly in the lamplight. He laid his arm across the back on the bench and looked at her. "Tonks, James and Sirius used to call me a bookworm, but honestly, I cannot imagine studying to be an Auror at the age of six or seven or even thirteen. I just never would have thought of such a thing. Even in my OWLs year, I was still a bit of an idiot."

Tonks shrugged. "_Autre temps, autres moeurs_. I grew up in a different world. Dark Marks and Death Eaters. Not much time to be an idiot. Come on," she said, standing and pulling Remus to his feet, "let's get our pizza."


	8. Back in the Kitchen

**Chapter 8: Back in the Kitchen**

Now that he lived more among people, now that he found himself endowed—to his silent bewilderment—with a growing array of friends, Remus worried more than ever about the sites of his transformations. In the year he taught at Hogwarts, he had, thanks to the Wolfsbane Potion, transformed in his office nine times without incident, but his forgetfulness about the potion in his last month as a professor made him sensitive to the dangers of transforming around other people. He could not risk transforming in Grimmauld Place; and the Shrieking Shack held bitter memories of the harm he had so often done himself and had so nearly done others.

Dumbledore, when Remus applied to him, spoke vaguely of what a good man he was, as if that lessened the terrors of his being a werewolf. When Remus had almost ceased to hope for practical assistance, Dumbledore flicked his wand at the animated map of Scotland on his study wall and abruptly endowed him with a tumbledown butt-and-ben cottage on the Isle of Skye. Remus visited it and was struck by its isolation, its wild charm, and the complex undetectability spells that Dumbledore had thoughtfully placed upon it. Setting to work, he barred the windows and scourgified the interior, thanking his stars that he at last had a safe, tidy, and secret place in which to transform.

A week after Tonks had tried to make him dinner, Remus apparated into Grimmauld Place following an untroubled, almost placid, transformation in his stone-walled den on the Isle of Skye. At the head of the kitchen table, Sirius was presiding over the remains of beans on toast. Tonks was hanging lazily over the back of a chair, on the point of departing for guard duty.

"Wotcher, Remus?" she said. "Feeling better?" She put her arm around him, pulled him to her, and kissed him on the cheek.

"For the moment. Thanks for asking. Go to work." He bent to kiss her cheek and pushed her gently towards the door. Tonks mussed his hair, waved to Sirius, and disapparated.

Sirius folded his arms and smirked down the length of the Black kitchen table. "Remus Lupin, in love at last?"

"What are you talking about?" said Remus, wiping the smile off his face.

"My fair young cousin. She told Molly and Arthur and me all about your Muggle pizza run last week."

Remus shrugged. "We got pizza."

"And now you're kissing her. Molly's planning the wedding, and Arthur wants you to take him to an authentic Muggle pizza parlor."

"She was kissing me," Remus pointed out. "In a purely platonic manner. Please pass the toast."

Remus sat down and put a serviette in his lap. Sirius passed the toast.

"You find her very attractive, don't you?"

Remus chewed slowly. Clearly, there was no safe answer to that question. But Tonks was Sirius's cousin, as well as a valuable member of the Order, and perhaps Sirius did have some right to be concerned. He swallowed and looked Sirius straight in the eye. "I haven't done anything inappropriate," he said firmly, "and I'm not going to."

Sirius merely chuckled. "Have you ever done anything inappropriate with a girl, Remus?"

"Not really."

"At Hogwarts, I recall, you fell in love about once every three months, and the only time you summoned your nerve to ask a girl on a date was the time you took Lily to Horace Slughorn's Christmas party—"

"—and she spent the entire evening watching James out of the corner of her eye. Yes. I also took Carrie Bones for a walk around the lake once, and she kissed me behind Greenhouse #3."

Sirius raised his eyebrows.

"And then the giant squid surfaced and splashed us, and she screamed and ran away."

Sirius guffawed. "And that's it?"

"Pretty much. It's been almost twenty years since Hogwarts, and there've been a few more women, but every affair ended just like Lily or just like Carrie, and just as quickly. No doubt for the best."

Sirius wrinkled his nose in a characteristic doglike gesture. "Remus, I have to ask you. I know you've got that furry little problem, but you're alive, you haven't been in prison, and you haven't been on the run. How does a man get to the age of almost thirty-seven without ever having had a woman?"

Remus's heart contorted in a mixture of anger and pathos. "It hasn't been much fun, Sirius. But then there are several aspects of my life that are not much fun. Anyway, Tonks is safe."

"Is that because werewolves don't respond to pretty women, or because werewolves lack the necessary equipment?"

"It's because_ responsible_ werewolves know what they're capable of and don't endanger those they love."

"Oh, you _are_ in love with her?" asked Sirius cheerfully.

Remus sighed with exasperation. "Sirius, that's not what I said. I—I'm very fond of her, and I'm going to keep her safe." He paused. "Anyway, Tonks sees me as sort of a benevolent older brother figure, just someone she likes to tease and romp with."

"Tonks sees you as a brave, brilliant, and goddamn sexy piece that she hasn't quite managed to negotiate into her bed yet."

"Sirius!" This time Remus was actually shocked. Sirius had been known for his ribald humor at Hogwarts; he had been famous for it. But Remus had half-forgotten that, and anyway he had assumed that the intervening decades would have softened Sirius's tongue. "Tonks is young. She has very little experience with men—"

"How do you know?"

"She told me. I mean, not explicitly—"

"And why were you two discussing Tonks's sex life?"

Remus sighed and pushed back his chair. "I'm going to bed. Let's not discuss this in the morning."

* * *

Tonks's birthday fell the day before Remus's. She was twenty-three and he was thirty-seven. As if to emphasize this disparity, Molly threw them a joint birthday party in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place. She baked two cakes and lit sixty candles with the tip of her wand, as Mad-Eye Moody thumped around the kitchen's perimeter, muttering, "Constant vigilance! Constant vigilance!" His pronouncements were quickly justified when Tonks, arriving late, squeezed into her seat and inadvertently tipped her cake into Remus's lap. The candles went out at once—Molly must have charmed them—but Remus, prying the cake from his lap, looked down at sleeves full of butter cream frosting.

"Oh, Remus, I'm so sorry! Here, let me clean it up—" Tonks hastily undid the buttons on Remus's cuff and began to roll up the sleeve.

"No, Tonks, don't bother. I'll do it myself." He jumped up and fled to the bathroom.

A minute later, there was a knock on the door. "Just a minute," called Remus, turning on the tap. It was too late; Sirius had already opened the door.

"I'll be back in a minute," said Remus firmly. "There's nothing wrong."

Sirius stepped into the bathroom, shut the door, and sat down on the toilet lid. "What's the matter with you, Moony? You jumped like you'd sat on a house elf when she started undoing your cuff buttons. Don't tell me you haven't imagined _that_."

"I didn't imagine it happening in your kitchen, in front of half the assembled Order!" retorted Remus.

Sirius laughed—not his usual bitter chuckle, but a spontaneous shout of joy. "There are private rooms at your disposal, mate, if you—"

Remus shook his head. He gestured at his clean, wet arm and rolled-up sleeve.

Sirius didn't flinch. "I think she could handle it, Moony, if you let her."

Remus shook his head again. "I hope she knows I'm violent, but I'd just as soon she didn't actually see—"

"Don't let the wolf run your life."

"Unfortunately, the wolf does run my life, whether I let him or not," said Remus, rolling down his sleeve. "And even if I were healthy, I'd be too old for her. Look how many candles Molly put on the cake."

"She might teach you how to be young again. Actually, I thought she already was."

Remus raised his eyebrows.

"Moony, I may be a little out of touch after twelve years in Azkaban, but I'm not totally daft. I know perfectly well that even Muggle bookstores don't stay open until midnight, however many charmed bookmarks you leave around the house. And it was pretty clear who the girl was."

Remus opened his mouth to explain, but there seemed to be no point. It was months since he had seen Sirius looking so happy.

"Come on back now. It's your party."

Remus followed Sirius obediently to the kitchen. Molly had redecorating Tonks's cake. Everyone else was downing shots of fire whiskey and studiously not staring at Remus. Tonks was intensely apologetic.

"Remus, I'm so sorry," she whispered, putting her arm around him. "I was late, and I'm so clumsy—did I burn you?"

"No," said Remus quietly. "So far no one has gotten burned."

* * *

It was two days later, and not yet daylight, when Remus awoke with a start. Blood on his arm, blood—he checked—on his lips, blood on the sheets. He stumbled into the bathroom and showered long and steamily. He cleaned and bandaged the wound, thinking, this does not happen to normal people. It does not. It does _not_.

At breakfast, Sirius, who was still in a cheerful mood, took advantage of his abstraction to offer some fairly explicit advice about how to make love to Tonks. Remus sat staring at the table, only half listening, pushing a tea cup moodily back and forth. The wound on his arm throbbed silently beneath the heavy cotton weave. Eventually he rose without a word, pushed the cup away from him, and strode towards the door.

Sirius cut him off and pushed him into a chair. Holding his shoulders, he said, in a slightly less jocular tone than before, "Moony, don't be mad at me. I'm saying this for your own good. You want her. She wants you. Do us all a favor and get it over with. Just pull her into bed next time she comes over. Or pull her down on the kitchen floor, if that's your style. I'll charm the door—"

"Look, Sirius, just because_ you've_ been in every girls' dormitory in Hogwarts, it does not mean that other people—"

"Boys aren't allowed in girls' dormitories," said Sirius, sounding amused. "But the password to the prefects' bathroom is 'Pine Fresh.' And it's very rarely occupied after midnight."

"You weren't a prefect."

"Hestia was." Sirius plopped into a chair beside Remus, still holding his shoulder. "It wasn't that many girls, you know, Moony. Just Hestia. And Lisa." Remus hadn't known about Lisa. "That was all. Really and truly. Fifth year. Sixth year—" Sirius broke off. "James took advice from me, you know," he pointed out. "Before— he had _quite_ a lot of questions."

A truly terrible thought crossed Remus's mind. "Sirius, tell me you didn't sleep with Lily."

Sirius laughed out loud. He laughed and laughed. "Lily would have copped me one if I tried anything funny," he said when he finally finished laughing. "And James would have had my head on a platter."

"Carrie?"

"Carrie never took her nose out a book. Not for me, anyway. You can keep your tame household goddesses."

Remus's throat hurt. "They're dead, Sirius," he said in a strangled voice. "Both of them."

"I know, Moony. I bloody well know. Tonks, on the other hand—"

Remus pulled out his wand and flicked it at the _Daily Prophet_. The newspaper sprouted wings, sailed across the room, slapped Sirius squarely across the forehead, and tweaked his nose.

"I'm going to give you some time to cool off, mate," said Sirius, still more amused than annoyed. "Have a nice book." He flicked his wand at the March edition of the _Quibbler_, which had arrived that morning, still in its brown paper wrapper. It was a wizarding rag full of unintentional humor, to which Remus subscribed on the theory that one never knew where intelligence might pop up. The magazine sailed across the room, nipped Remus's ear, and tumbled into his lap. He picked it up, pulled off the wrapper, and stared.

HARRY POTTER SPEAKS OUT AT LAST, the headline blared. THE TRUTH ABOUT HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED AND THE NIGHT I SAW HIM RETURN.

* * *

It was a brilliantly sunny morning in April when they went to see the lilacs at Kew. Hogwarts's gardens were magnificent, but they were rare in the wizarding world. Hogsmeade, Diagon Alley, and most wizard homes—from mansions like the Blacks' and Malfoys' right down to the modest Burrow—had a tumbledown quality to them, with weeds and flowers alike ranged in wild disarray among the tattered buildings. At Kew, the trim foliage breathed reprimands on Remus for his scruffiness, and though he still felt sore and headachy from his last transformation, he tried to mollify the bushes by standing up straighter and tucking in his shirt. Tonks, unusually, wore a Muggle dress, a straight sheath of dark blue. She walked serenely between the rows of flowers, her head held high, only stumbling twice.

"How was it?" she asked.

"Was what?"

"Your weekend on Skye, of course. You only just got back."

Remus did not discuss his transformations with anyone if he could avoid it; it was a subject on which there could not be too little said. "It was what it was. It is what it is. I'm lucky to be on a potion now. At least I keep my mind when I transform."

"I miss you when you're gone."

"I'm terribly sorry to leave the Order in a lurch, Tonks. I always worry about what will happen if there's an emergency at the full moon. It hasn't happened yet—not this time around—but it happened in the First War, and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before it happens again."

"That kind of thing happens to everyone, Remus. Sirius is still stuck in hiding. Mad-Eye got himself locked in a trunk for nine months. I was seven years old in the last war—and the Order did without me. What I meant was, I miss you personally."

Remus felt intensely embarrassed.

"But then, you don't do personal, do you?"

"I think I've done some personal with you."

They were walking in a remote copse, nearly a mile from the Main Gate, with scarcely another person in sight. Tonks put her hand in his hair and kissed him where his cheek met his chin. "More?" she asked softly. She kissed his neck.

Remus's chest felt weak. Blood was racing to his pelvis. He laid a hand on her shoulder—and pushed her away.

"Why do you always push me away, Remus?"

"I haven't been pushing you away, Tonks. I've been spending a ridiculous amount of time with you." Tonks's cheeks twitched as if she were about to cry. "Look, Tonks, if I ever do push you away, you need to respect that. I'm sorry, but I'm not a whole man. There are things I just can't do."

"Your furry little problem?"

"That's what James used to call it."

"Sirius does too."

"He would," said Remus bitterly. "It's real, Tonks."

"Maybe I don't mind."

"I mind."

"Remus, I'm going home." She walked a few steps and disapparated, an unquestionable breach of Magical Security on a Tuesday morning in Kew.


	9. Turtle Sundae

**Chapter 9: Turtle Sundae**

When Remus saw Tonks again, she was calm, controlled, and scrupulously polite. In meetings, she spoke crisply, articulately, and with growing authority. Remus was struck all over again by her unvaunted intelligence, the elegant simplicity of her plans. After meetings, she fooled with Sirius, discussed pop music with Bill, and teased Arthur Weasley about his Muggle obsession, according Remus only the scantest attention. Remus knew he ought to be grateful for this. He had known all winter that there would have to be a reckoning, that there would have to be a break; he could scarcely have hoped it would be accomplished so decisively and yet so discreetly. To be sure, Sirius asked after Tonks repeatedly, chewing her out for not coming to dinner more often and chewing Remus out for not being "nice" to her. Remus received these allegations in patient silence and after a few weeks Sirius stopped asking. Molly, too, eyed Remus and Tonks quizzically, as they sat at opposite ends of the kitchen table, engaged in entirely separate conversations, but she said nothing. Bill was talking vaguely of engagements and weddings, and Molly had enough on her mind. Remus knew he ought to be grateful.

Instead, he felt restless. Though he no longer had Tonks to explore with, he continued to explore Muggle London on his own, walking the city's alleys and bridges, strolling through parks and museums. He went for solitary drinks at the Leaky Cauldron. He resumed hanging out in the back room at Flourish and Blotts. It didn't matter much which book he picked up, as he kept forgetting to read the page in front of him. As he strolled down Diagon Alley one warm April evening, after Flourish and Blotts had closed (it did not, like Waterstone's, remain open till midnight), a familiar voice intruded abruptly on his preoccupations.

"Remus!" Alfred Bones was sitting in front of Florean Fortescue's ice cream parlor, a mess of papers and an overflowing turtle sundae spread before him. Remus approached and saw, over Healer Bones's shoulder, that the papers were that morning's _Daily Prophet_ and the March edition of the _Quibbler_.

"This is a haunt of yours," observed Remus lightly.

"It always has been," said Alfred Bones, patting his stomach ruefully. "What's strange is seeing you here. Are you meeting Nymphadora?"

"No. No, just out for a stroll," said Remus, staring at the papers.

Alfred Bones noticed that he was staring. "There are strange things afoot at Hogwarts. I have a niece there, you know. Susan. When she came home for Easter holidays, she—well, she didn't actually say anything—I got the impression—well, I would be glad to know there was a responsible adult looking out for them," he finished lamely, folding up the _Quibbler_.

Remus nodded.

"I'm not sure if Amelia noticed, but I'm sure you can trust her," said Alfred Bones.

Remus nodded again, stowing the information in the recesses of his mind. Dumbledore's Army had already been broken up; he had heard the story from Dumbledore himself, in the wake of Dolores Umbridge's coup. He wondered now how many other people, how many teachers, how many parents, how many benevolent uncles, had known and not told. He wondered how many pockets of resistance, how many shadow armies, were forming against the Ministry.

"Remus, if you're not in a hurry, sit down," said Alfred Bones.

Remus sat. "Coffee," he said absently to the waiter who arrived to take his order.

"And a second spoon," added Alfred Bones, gesturing at his sundae. "Remus, you look healthier than I've ever seen you, and utterly distracted. What's wrong? Is the potion working for you?"

"The potion is a godsend," said Remus. "It makes my transformations predictable and—well—nonviolent. It makes it possible for me to live among people again. I even taught at Hogwarts for a year. Since I left, I've been freelancing and sharing a house with an old friend. It's quite a luxury, living in society again."

"But you had gotten used to being a loner, hadn't you?" asked Alfred Bones perceptively.

Remus nodded. "I didn't like being alone, but it was simpler. I didn't like being an outcast, but at least I knew where I stood. It's hard to be among people who think a potion is a cure, who think lycanthropy is no more dangerous than a bad cold."

"It's an unhappy condition. Even with the potion, it will always affect your jobs, your relationships."

Remus laughed wryly. "I never really expected to have much in the way of jobs or relationships. My parents were just happy that I lived to grow up, that my condition was manageable enough to allow me to attend school, that I didn't get seduced by the Dark Arts and the werewolves who—" He paused, at a loss for words.

"I've heard about Fenrir Greyback," said Alfred Bones.

"When I left Hogwarts, I went straight into the Order of the Phoenix, where I was needed, and my condition didn't matter much. I got to be a bit of daredevil, working in that company—I didn't really expect to survive the war. Adjusting to peacetime was hard for me."

"There'll be another war any day now," pointed out Alfred Bones. He had never minced words.

"And half of me actually wants this new war so I don't have to figure out how to make a life for myself in peacetime. That, and I have some unfinished business from the first one. I want to bring Voldemort down, and the Death Eaters with him. I want—not revenge exactly—but justice, for my friends who were killed. Or worse."

"So do I and every member of my family," said Alfred Bones. "Including Susan," he muttered under his breath. "But wars don't last forever, and the next war won't solve your problem of adjusting to peace. Find a job, marry a wife, have a child, write a book, plant a tree."

"I might start with the last," mused Remus. Now that he had that scrap of land on the Isle of Skye, he could, he supposed, plant a tree if he wanted to. The idea rather appealed to him. It seemed like such a refreshingly normal, even Muggle, thing to do. "And I suppose I might write a book someday, if I live long enough. There are werewolf books—_Hairy Snout, Human Heart_ was a very maudlin one I read as a teenager—"

"I wasn't necessarily thinking of a werewolf book. Write something decent, about something you care about. Defense against the Dark Arts, for example."

"That was what I taught at Hogwarts."

"I know. Best teacher Dumbledore has found in a long time, I shouldn't wonder. Of course, now that Dolores Umbridge is _revolutionizing_ the curriculum—" Bones broke off and shook his head ruefully. "I suppose you can't teach anymore?" he asked.

"Not while the Werewolf Regulatory Act is in effect, no."

"Teaching is the right job for you."

"I like teaching," said Remus regretfully. "I like kids."

Alfred Bones set down his chocolate-and-caramel-laden spoon and folded his hands. "Remus," he said quietly, "if any man with your condition could make a success of marriage and fatherhood, I think it would be you. It's unusual, but it's not unprecedented."

Remus was touched. Healer Bones was, he knew, no Legilimens, but he had an uncanny knack for peering right into one's mind and reading one's thoughts. Remus had always found Bones's counsel helpful—though not an expert on lycanthropy, Bones seemed to have an instinctive understanding of how the condition resonated through all the other complexities of a werewolf's life.

However. "I know there are precedents, but that's precisely what gives me pause. The number of werewolves who have bitten their lovers, bitten their spouses, bitten—" He sighed. "I bit myself last month."

"That's part of the condition," said Alfred Bones slowly. "It's happened before."

"I wasn't transformed."

Bones cocked his head inquiringly.

"I was asleep. It was—mark this—a waning moon. I was having a dream—a werewolf dream—about chasing someone—and I bit myself."

"And then?"

"And then I woke up. And this whole new potion-informed life that I've been building for myself started to fall to pieces. I'm living in a friend's house—he's around all the time—and there are other people in and out at all hours. What might I do to them?"

"Remus, I'm not an expert on werewolves, but I would imagine, at the very least, that you're completely safe when you're awake."

"I think so. I hope so. But it does rather dish family life. I have to think about controlling myself every minute—not letting anyone be around me when I'm asleep, not letting myself lose control in any way—"

He broke off. Alfred Bones watched him sadly and said nothing. After a minute, he pushed the ice cream dish forward. "Finish the sundae, Remus. You were always a believer in the healing powers of chocolate."

Remus was licking the spoon when a squat witch in a floppy straw hat approached him. A masculine face peered out from beneath the beribboned brim. It was Mundungus Fletcher. "Headquarters," he hissed under his breath. "Now."


	10. Before the Battle

**Chapter 10: Before the Battle**

Dumbledore, on one of his rare visits to Grimmauld Place that spring, asked Remus to start liaising with the werewolves. It was an analog to Hagrid and Olympe Maxime's mission to the giants and, Remus thought grimly, almost equally likely to succeed. But Dumbledore wanted it done, and no one said no to Albus Dumbledore. He had been right so often where others had been wrong and—Remus thought gratefully—he was right about me.

The first step in Dumbledore's plan was the compilation of a master list of all werewolves in the United Kingdom, with their locations, case histories, and known political affiliations. There were more of them by far than Remus had realized. There had, he noticed, been a lot of bites in the First War. Mostly by Fenrir Greyback. Some of them looked like political bites. Then a period of inactivity, and then, recently, a small but discernible spike . . . It was a grim business. It was also a lot of work. Remus, glancing at the calendar, noted wryly that they were nearing the longest day of the year.

Thursday began badly when Severus Snape's Patronus zipped into the Grimmauld Place kitchen at breakfast time and informed them that Minerva McGonagall was in St. Mungo's suffering from critical spell damage inflicted by Ministry Aurors.

"Damn it, doesn't Kingsley keep track of these things?" roared Sirius, who was mixing Remus's potion (Molly was busy and Tonks hadn't been around much, but Remus still hadn't mustered the nerve to mix the potion himself). "He's supposed to be keeping track! Doesn't bother to tell us a thing—"

"Kingsley had yesterday off, remember?" asked Remus reasonably.

"What he needs a day off for—if I were free—"

"Between the Ministry and the Order, he hasn't had a full day off in two weeks," pointed out Remus. "And we'll be up a creek if he goes sick—"

"Well, Tonks, then, she's in the Auror Office too—"

"Tonks was on guard duty last night. She's just gotten off. She probably doesn't know a thing about it."

"And Moody?"

"That's Moody now," sighed Remus, recognizing the familiar crunch-tap, crunch-tap in the front hall. He downed the potion in one foul swig. "Look, you tell him, okay? And he can tell the others. I've got a hell of a day ahead, and if I leave now, I can spare twenty minutes for St. Mungo's."

Minerva was unconscious and he was not allowed to see her.

It was past ten o'clock that night when Remus walked back into the kitchen of Grimmauld Place. Sirius, Tonks, and Kingsley Shacklebolt were sitting around the table, the remains of a long-eaten meal before them. Tonks was drumming the fingers of her left hand on the edge of the table as her right hand manipulated a raggedy quill, twirling it like a baton (and occasionally dropping it). Kingsley was leaning back in his chair, staring at the ceiling and grinding his teeth. Sirius was drinking whiskey and playing with the shot glass. No one spoke.

"What's wrong?" demanded Remus, looking from one of them to another.

"Take your potion," muttered Tonks. "It's on the sideboard. All you need to do is add the chopped wolfsbane and stir three times."

"In a minute," snapped Remus. He inhaled. "I'm sorry, Tonks, you're right. I'm in a really bad mood tonight. Just tell me quickly what happened."

Nearly fifteen years ago, Remus had walked into another kitchen and found three other people sitting around another table in this same tense silence. Then it had been Minerva who was absentmindedly grinding her teeth. Elphias Doge was playing with the silverware and Mad-Eye was drinking whiskey. The night the war ended, the night Sirius was sent to Azkaban. It had been almost full moon then, too, Remus remembered, but in those days there had been no Wolfsbane Potion to take, and no one to tell him to take it.

"Snape sent his Patronus here earlier this evening," said Kingsley bluntly. "There was some sort of scene at Hogwarts—Dolores Umbridge caught Harry in her office—and Harry told Snape that Voldemort was torturing Sirius in the bowels of the Ministry."

"That's absurd," breathed Remus. "Harry knows that Sirius isn't leaving Grimmauld Place."

"Harry can see into Voldemort's mind, remember? Or thinks he can."

"He's manipulating it," said Remus, sinking into a chair as his heart sank in his stomach. "He's putting images in Harry's mind. To lure him—"

"To the Department of Mysteries," interjected Tonks. "That's what we're afraid of. Take your potion." She shoved the goblet in front of him.

He drank.

"Mad-Eye was here when the message came," continued Kingsley. "He's trying to make contact with Dumbledore. It's pretty damned complicated, though, since Dumbledore didn't tell any of us where he went. And we need to be ready to move at any minute."

"How many people have we got?" asked Remus. "Just three?"

Sirius nearly choked on his whiskey.

"Mad-Eye is upstairs," said Kingsley. "He'll be back any minute."

"If there's a battle tonight, I'm coming," said Sirius.

"Sirius—I just don't know—"

"You used to like fighting with me, Moony. You _used_ to think I was rather good at it."

"For Merlin's sake, Sirius, I don't doubt your skill. There is no one I would rather have on my side. But it will blow your cover entirely, and it may also blow the cover of Grimmauld Place, and I don't know if we're ready—"

"Let him come," snapped Tonks. "Sirius isn't a coward."

Remus turned. He looked at her. Their eyes met.

"I didn't mean to imply that anyone present was a coward in battle," said Tonks crisply. "I meant that Sirius isn't a coward about living his life."

Remus's facial muscles twitched, but all that came out was an angry snarl. A werewolf snarl, Remus thought, chagrined. Tonks jumped up and ran out of the room.

"Be nice to her, Moony," said Sirius.

"When have I not been nice to her? And doesn't she have to be nice to me?"

Sirius shrugged. "Girls you're in love with always get under your skin. Or so I understand. From James."

"When you take your girlfriend to the park," said Kingsley, "or to Kew—"

"—as the Muggles do," interjected Sirius.

"—it's customary to put your arm around her, and tender her a little affection—"

"—or at any rate not push her away if she tries to tender you a little affection," finished Sirius.

Remus felt like slapping him. He slapped the table instead. The silverware rattled, and an empty whiskey bottle slid onto the floor and rolled towards the fireplace.

"That was a _private_ conversation we had at Kew," he said. "I thought Tonks understood that. I guess I overestimated her."

"Don't blame her, Remus," said Kingsley in his deep, mellow voice. "It's our fault. We were twitting her about you and whether she was seeing you on the sly. She told us the great romance was off, but we just kept teasing her—Sirius said a few choice things—"

Remus looked from Kingsley to Sirius. "I don't think I want to hear them," he said.

"—and she told us about Kew. To prove to us it was all off."

"It was the worst news I'd heard in a long time," said Sirius. "Not excepting the war."

"I'm sorry," said Remus. "Merlin knows it's not what I want either."

"You could have been my cousin," said Sirius.

"I look on you as a brother," said Remus.

"It's not that I want Tonks for you so that we can be related," said Sirius. "I want you for Tonks."

There was a clatter on the stairs and a blinding flash of light. Mad-Eye and Tonks stumbled into the kitchen from one direction just as an enormous misty lizard shot into the kitchen from the other. It was Severus Snape's Patronus: a chameleon.

"Ick," muttered Tonks under her breath. This was her ritual response to every message Snape sent by Patronus.

"They've gone to the Ministry," said Kingsley, taking the message.

"They? Harry _and _Ron _and_ Hermione?"

"And Ginny and Neville and Luna Lovegood. On thestrals."

Tonks blinked. Remus wondered if she was thinking about Neville. On a thestral.

"Snape wants as many of us as possible to go to their aid," continued Kingsley. "And Sirius to stay here and make contact with Dumbledore."

"Not on your life!" exclaimed Sirius, rising.

"You're coming," said Remus. It was more a statement than a question.

Sirius clapped him on the shoulder. "Kreacher!" he yelled. "Kreacher!"


	11. Beyond the Veil

Author note: This chapter contains dialogue from J. K. Rowling, _Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix _(New York: Scholastic, 2003), p. 806.

**Chapter 11: Beyond the Veil**

In the crowded, lamp-lit infirmary at Hogwarts, in the wee hours of Friday morning, Madam Pomfrey gazed in silent horror at the battle-scarred survivors. Hermione, stony-faced and unconscious, lay where Remus had deposited her, in the first bed. As Madam Pomfrey put two practiced fingers to Hermione's wrist, her gaze flickered over Ron, lacerated, clutching his ribs, and still giggling faintly; Ginny, pallid and tense, both hands closed tightly over her shattered ankle; Luna, breathing heavily, eyes closed and dirty blonde hair streaming over her face; Neville, panting and stroking his misshapen nose; Kingsley Shacklebolt, his long legs spilling over the end of his cot, bruised and bloody and still bravely smiling; Mad-Eye Moody, standing stolidly in a corner and rinsing his magic eyeball in the infirmary sink. Her gaze finally came to rest on Tonks, unconscious and battered from head to toe.

"St. Mungo's!" she screamed, pointing. "Now! I'll have my hands full with this one," she held up Hermione's arm, from which she was still taking a pulse, "and that one—" she indicated Ron's lacerated limbs, "and that one—" she pointed to Luna. "Mr. Shacklebolt can stay if he can stand the pain, it will be a couple hours before—"

"Calm yourself, Madam Pomfrey," said Kingsley in his soft, smooth voice. "I'm in no great pain and I'd like to stay with the youngsters."

Mad-Eye Moody conjured a stretcher, strapped Tonks to it, and departed forthwith for St. Mungo's. Madam Pomfrey seized a jar of ointment from the dressing table and tossed it to Ginny. "Miss Weasley, if you're strong enough to sit up, start rubbing that into your brother's arms. I'm not going to be able to get to him for a while." She shook her head over Hermione, turned back to the potions table, and started mixing ingredients.

Ginny was struggling with the lid of the ointment jar. Her face beneath the curtain of dark red hair was so white Remus feared she was about to faint. I ought to be doing that, he thought numbly. As he stepped forward, the swing doors burst open to admit Professors Sprout and Flitwick, hastily dressed and shaking, bringing with them a whiff of the cold, angry dawn.

Madam Pomfrey breathed a sigh of relief. "Professor Sprout, will you take that jar from Miss Weasley and apply the ointment to her brother's limbs? Brain tentacles," she muttered, under her breath, "I ask you! The scars! Professor Flitwick—owls to the Weasleys, the Grangers, Mr. Lovegood, and Mrs. Longbottom. They'll recover. Miss Granger and Mr. Weasley are the ones I'm concerned about." Professor Flitwick turned on his heels and scuttled away to the owlery. "Here—" she jammed a goblet of shimmering liquid in Remus's face. "It's a calming draught. You need it. Drink it off, go home, and go straight to bed. Now!" she added. "I do _not_ want anyone fainting in my infirmary. I've got enough to do this morning." She shoved another goblet of calming draught in Ginny's hand and resumed her ministrations to Hermione.

Obediently, Remus sipped the draught and surveyed the scene. Ron was giggling maniacally, almost flirtatiously, as Professor Sprout rubbed lavish quantities of ointment into the deep welts where the tentacles had gripped him. Ginny was holding her hand to her forehead, but the color was seeping back into her face. Kingsley Shacklebolt caught Remus's eye and nodded towards the door.

"Home!" screeched Madam Pomfrey, prying apart Hermione's lips and tipping a goblet of foul-smelling liquid into her mouth. "And take your other potion when you get there!" Remus rose unsteadily and walked slowly through the door and out into the angry purple dawn.

Half-way done the stone corridor, a voice caught him. "Professor Lupin! Professor Lupin!" It was Neville Longbottom, half-running, half-limping toward him. His robes were torn from armpit to ankle and his upper lip bore a moustache of dried blood. "Professor Lupin," panted Neville, reaching him, "Will you—can you—will you teab me to conbure a Patronus?" He paused expectantly, then added, as if by way of explanation, "I need to learn to conbure a Patronus."

For perhaps the forty-seventh time that morning, Remus watched in his mind's eye as Sirius, clever, limber, handsome even in death, sparred with his cousin, taunted her, froze, and fell backwards beyond the veil.

He looked at Neville.

He felt Harry struggling in his arms. "Sirius!" Harry had cried. "SIRIUS!"

"There's nothing you can do, Harry—"

"Get him, save him, he's only just gone through!"

"It's too late, Harry—"

"We can still reach him—"

"There's nothing you can do, Harry . . . nothing . . . He's gone."

"Lily is dead," Mad-Eye Moody was saying, months ago, in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place, "Sorry boys . . . We'll make do with what we've got."

Remus pulled his wand from his pocket and flicked it at Neville. "_Tergeo_." Neville flinched and brushed his now-clean upper lip. Remus took a deep breath. "As soon as you're out of the infirmary—and I may be sick for a few days—as soon as I can get back to Hogwarts, I will teach you to conjure a Patronus."

* * *

Grimmauld Place had never been so silent. Wearily, Remus climbed the stairs to his fourth-floor bedroom, remembered his other potion—thank goodness Madam Pomfrey had reminded him—and returned to the basement. He mixed the components with shaking hands, missing Tonks desperately, and drank it off.

In the echoing mansion, a thin male voice called, "Sirius! Sirius!"

Remus started apprehensively. He didn't recognize the voice. Who of the Order could be here so soon?

"Sirius!"

On the third-floor landing, Phineas Nigellus Black was bellowing from a muddy landscape of goblins and trolls. Remus opened his mouth, couldn't find the words, and gently shook his head.

"I don't believe it!" retorted the portrait indignantly, but without conviction. After a minute, he resumed calling, "Sirius! Sirius!"

In his attic bedroom, now glazed with eastern sunlight, Remus stripped off his robes but did not pull back the covers of his bed. He changed into Muggle slacks and a tattered corduroy jacket, bundled his robes and wand into a scruffy blue backpack, and left by the front door. For six hours he walked the streets of Muggle London. At last, famished and footsore, he bought a bun and a cup of coffee at a kiosk in Regent's Park, seated himself on a bench, and stared into space.

"You look like you've seen better days, man." Remus looked up to find that a Muggle had taken possession of the other half of his bench. Curiously, the Muggle faintly resembled Remus: a lanky fellow in a long-sleeved T-shirt and washed-out jeans, turning the corner from youth to middle age.

"My best friend died last night," said Remus, after a moment.

"Sorry, man. No wonder you look like a death hound. Were it sudden?"

"Very."

"Were he sick, or were he killed?"

"He was killed in a fight."

"Man, I'm sorry. Did the police get him what did it?"

"The police—" Remus bit his lip. He was not sure how to explain the Ministry's attitude to a Muggle in Muggle language. In fact, he had no idea what the Ministry's present attitude towards Sirius would be. Had Sirius been cleared? "I don't trust the police," he said at last, rather lamely.

"Not much, neither do I."

Remus expected the Muggle to leave him to his grief, but he didn't go. After a few minutes, Remus said blankly, "He was the last."

"Your friend was the last?"

"There were four of us, when we were teenagers. I was sick and my friends were healthy. Now I'm alive and my friends are dead." He paused, struggling with a sense of déjà vu. Two dead and one a traitor. This has happened before. "Except Peter."

"Peter?"

"He was one of the gang. The dumbest, the blandest, the sneakiest. He's alive." Remus added bitterly, "He's been keeping very bad company."

To his surprise, the Muggle seemed to understand. "Has he been inside?"

"Inside?"

"Prison."

"Oh. No, actually, he hasn't. Though he certainly deserved it." Remus took a deep breath. "My friend who died last night had been in prison. Twelve years. A third of his life, for a murder he didn't commit. He was supposed to have murdered Peter."

"And Peter is alive?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

The Muggle looked at Remus with deep concern. "Well, that's a bum rap. Ain't you got no one to cheer you up—no wife and kids?"

Remus shook his head.

"No girlfriend?"

Without thinking what he was saying, Remus replied, "She's in hospital."

"What, hospital? What's wrong with her?"

"Concussion."

The Muggle whistled sharply. "She weren't in a fight too, were she?"

Remus nodded.

"Man, what exciting lives you and your friends lead!" exclaimed the Muggle.

Remus supposed that was one way to look at it.


	12. Making Up

**Chapter 12: Making Up**

It was five o'clock in the morning on the Isle of Skye when Remus awoke and knew himself to be a man again. Short summer nights bred short transformations. Too sore to get out of bed, he lay staring at the cottage's thatched roof, as disconnected, incoherent visions of Neville, Tonks, Sirius, James, and Lily flickered through his head. He wondered what new disasters might have transpired in his twenty-four hours of enforced inactivity. He wondered whether to go first to St. Mungo's or to Hogwarts. The sun was high overhead by the time Remus pried himself from bed and mixed an Invigoration Draught in the cottage's primitive kitchen. This had been the first potion he learned to mix properly; Madam Pomfrey had drilled him in it through three successive chilly spring afternoons in his first year at Hogwarts, as she lectured him on the importance of remedies.

Wearily, he scrubbed the traces of the wolf from the stone cottage—muddy paw prints on the mattress and urine on the floor—sealed it, and left. He apparated to the sloping hillside across from Hogwarts Castle. He picked a bunch of lilies and dispatched an owl to St. Mungo's. He appropriated the Defense against the Dark Arts classroom, reflecting dully that it had been only two years since it was his own. He located Neville.

Neville was not a quick study. As he sheepishly explained, Harry had taught most of Dumbledore's Army to produce Patronuses that spring; even Seamus Finnegan, who had missed all the preceding meetings, had produced a wispy Patronus on his very first try. But Neville, in spite of the progress he had made in other spells and charms, had failed to produce even a vaporous, indistinct Patronus. Remus consoled him and put him through his paces. Neville's technique was surprisingly good; he had improved immeasurably in the two years since Remus had taught him. But nothing happened. Remus questioned him tactfully about what memories he was using, wondering secretly if Neville had, perhaps, no adequately happy memories to use. Neville, it turned out, had a plethora of happy memories: of Hermione helping him with homework, of dancing at the Yule Ball with Ginny, of coddling his _Mimbulus mimbletonia_, of, most especially, the D.A. But none of them seemed to work. Remus fed him chocolate and promised to return before the end of the term. He felt weak in body and weary in mind. He needed some chocolate himself.

The corridors of St. Mungo's were crowded that afternoon: with Healers, with patients, with Ministry officials, with chatty "visitors" scribbling discreetly inside their robe pockets who, Remus knew at a glance, were members of the press. The Welcome Witch, surveying the hollowed sockets of Remus's eyes and his limping gait (he had thrown a muscle in his transformation) conceived a notion that he was suffering from spell damage and insistently tried to direct him to the intake clinic on the fourth floor. Remus explained his true mission while endeavoring not to say outright that he was a werewolf suffering the usual post-transformation aches and pains. (There was no saying how a stranger would react, and he did not want to get thrown out of St. Mungo's.) He was rescued at last when Kingsley Shacklebolt clapped him on the shoulder and said, "Ah, Remus, we've been watching for you. Room 412."

"You're off?"

"I'm going back to work this evening. That is, I'm meeting Rufus Scrimgeour for a drink. He has some mysterious new mission for me."

"Mended?"

"Madam Pomfrey did a fine job. They were superficial wounds. The youngsters are feeling better, too."

"Good. I saw Neville, and Ginny in passing, but I haven't seen the others. Hermione and Ron were asleep when I was at Hogwarts, and Harry—may need some time to himself."

Kingsley nodded sympathetically. "He fought like an Auror Thursday night. And he lost—like a member of the Order. Like you and Sirius and Molly and Mad-Eye did in the last war. But that comes with the job."

Remus nodded mutely. He hadn't thought much about the prospect of losing Sirius; unlike Molly, he had dwelt more on facing his own death than on facing the deaths of his loved ones. That came from too many years of living alone. Even now that it had happened, he found the hollow ache in his chest distinctly less painful than the mad frenzy of despair that had wreaked such havoc on him following Sirius's apparent betrayal fifteen years before.

Kingsley looked at him and made a mute sympathetic gesture. He added, "Well, Tonks is waiting for you," turned into a fireplace, and was gone.

Tonks was sitting up in bed. Her hair was an odd color, mottled pink and brown, as if the morph was fading strand by strand. Her face was strained and alert. "Remus!" she cried as he softly opened the door.

He went to her and, after a minute, took her hand.

"They told me about Sirius," she said.

"The Healers told you?"

"Molly and Bill were here when I woke up. They told me." She paused. "It was mostly my fault."

"Tonks, it wasn't your fault."

"I gave you very bad advice. I was—trying to hurt you. Just needle you. It was completely uncalled for."

"You gave me perfectly sound advice. I probably would have asked Sirius to come even if you hadn't urged me to. And Sirius would have come anyway, even if we had all told him not to. Nothing in the world would stop Sirius from trying to protect Harry if Harry was in danger. As you said once yourself, his daring was his strength."

"Even if Sirius had come—he needn't have been fighting Bella. I was supposed to being do that. If I hadn't fallen—"

"That wasn't your fault, Tonks."

"I'm clumsy," she muttered. "And inexperienced. It was my first real battle. I've spent most of the last two years juggling paperwork, developing codes, plotting maps. And spying. I was tired—I lost my footing—"

"You did a fine job, whether it was your first duel or your fortieth. And Sirius knew exactly what he was doing when he stepped in. He was a very accomplished duelist. There was no reason why you should have been protecting him."

"No," said Tonks meditatively. "Probably not. But I always felt like I ought to be protecting him. There was this dynamic—big brother, little sister—except I always felt like I was the grown-up. Sirius seemed like a teenager to me—you know, same age as Harry and Hermione, just not quite as mature."

Tonks shook her mottled hair ferociously and looked at Remus. "Did you ever feel like you had to look after Sirius?"

"Well—"

"I always thought he acted like a big teenager around you."

"I think we both acted like teenagers. Reliving the happy days of our youth, before we joined the Order and life got complicated."

"That's what Sirius was doing. I didn't notice it with you." She smiled faintly. "You must have been a more sober teenager than he was."

"A bookworm watching from the shadows."

"And now you're alone."

"Yes," said Remus simply, thinking of the quartet in Gryffindor Tower.

"So am I."

Remus looked at her sharply, sympathy mingled with a sense that Sirius's death could not possibly have left her alone as it had left him.

"The only daughter of the House of Black on Dumbledore's side."

"You're your father's daughter, too. You don't—Tonks, I know it's personal, it was personal for Sirius, that was why he so wanted to fight Bella—but you don't have to be a daughter of the House of Black if you don't want to be. You are not in any way responsible for your aunts and uncles. We'll let it go."

Tonks looked away and said softly, so softly that Remus wasn't sure he had heard, "I will always be a daughter of the House of Black."

* * *

Remus did not return to Grimmauld Place that night. Mad-Eye Moody waylaid him en route and informed him, in cursory phrases, that Dumbledore had reason to believe that Bellatrix Lestrange had inherited the house and Kreacher. The house was being monitored. The Order had cleared out. Remus's possessions remained on the fourth floor; he could secure them at his own risk. The sooner the better, but not without back-up. Under no circumstances was he to spend a moment more than necessary in the house.

Bone-tired as he was, Remus made no argument, though he knew—Sirius had told him—that Sirius had willed Grimmauld Place to Harry. He took the Floo Network to the Burrow and fell limply into a spare bed. When he awoke the sun was high in the sky and Molly was bringing him lunch. She didn't know if he had any assignments; most of the schedule had been scrapped in the wake of the battle at the Department of Mysteries. Dumbledore was busy with Fudge and Hogwarts. Minerva and Tonks were still in hospital. Kingsley had volunteered to keep tabs on Rufus Scrimgeour, who seemed to be positioning himself to become the next Minister of Magic; but there was a rumor abroad that Kingsley's responsibilities at the Ministry might be shifted soon. Alastor Moody was hunting Bellatrix Lestrange. Emmeline Vance and Hestia Jones were monitoring Grimmauld Place. Elphias Doge and Dedalus Diggle were trailing Narcissa Malfoy, watching to see if she tried to make contact with Azkaban. Kingsley hoped to get authorization from the Auror Office to raid the Malfoy estate. Bill would accompany Remus to Grimmauld Place and cover him while he got his things, but they would have to go at a "safe" hour and couldn't linger. There would be a grand powwow at a yet-to-be-determined location on July 1st, as soon as the Hogwarts term ended.

Remus spent the rest of the day in bed. At seven o'clock on Monday morning, he went with Bill to Grimmauld Place and packed his belongings. One suitcase of worn clothing he sent to the Burrow; Molly had invited him to stay for the rest of the week, until the children returned from school. After that, he knew, he would be homeless again, with no place to go but the Isle of Skye. He didn't want to send the books there, lest he destroy them in one of his rages. In the end, he left the boxes standing, stacked, against the wall. Bill apparated to Gringotts, and Remus apparated to the lobby of St. Mungo's.

He stopped first to see Minerva McGonagall in the critical spell damage ward. She lay propped up on pillows, in a tartan dressing gown, gray hair escaping from a bun, both palms clutching her ribs. "Four Stunners straight to the chest," everyone was saying, "and she's not exactly young." She had been Remus's head of house when he was a student at Hogwarts; she had taught transfiguration to three-quarters of the Order. Transfigured as a tabby cat, she had stood guard over Harry the night his parents died; she had prowled the grounds of the Malfoy estate and other, less prominent Death Eater homes. She had taken risks and come through every trial unscathed, kept young, she claimed, by the influence of the madcap children she taught. Now, suddenly, she looked her full age, and maybe more.

Kingsley Shacklebolt was standing by Minerva's bedside, dressed in a pinstriped Muggle suit, shiny black shoes, and tinted glasses. Remus did a double-take. Kingsley had always been a snappier dresser than most wizards, but now he looked like the "secret service agent" that Remus's father had pointed out to him in a film at a Muggle cinema they had once visited.

"Congratulate Kingsley," said Minerva faintly, massaging her ribs. "He's been promoted. Or, as the Muggles would say, kicked upstairs."

"I don't know the expression," said Remus mildly, "but it sounds unpleasant."

"They've kicked me right out of the Ministry, they have," said Kingsley wryly, "but who knows? It may be a blessing in disguise."

"What's going on?"

"Rufus Scrimgeour has assigned me to protect the Muggle prime minister. I'm posing as his private secretary, starting this morning. Technically, it's a promotion—it's a responsible position, and well worth doing. It's supposed to be something of an honor. But it has the convenient side effect that I'll be working 70 or 80 hours a week in Muggle settings, and living in a Muggle flat—Scrimgeour insisted on that—so I'll scarcely have any opportunity to make contact with wizards, much less appear at the Ministry. Unless, of course, things reach such a state of crisis that the Muggle prime minister is attacked, in which case we've probably lost anyway."

"Scrimgeour seems to think that Kingsley has been concealing information from the Ministry," explained Minerva.

"He asked me some funny questions on Saturday night," elaborated Kingsley. "He was _extremely _interested in how you and I and Moody and Tonks found out that Harry and his friends had gone to the Ministry that night. And he also wanted to know how long I had known of Sirius's whereabouts, and why I hadn't turned him in. Seeing as how I was supposed to be in charge of the search and all. I tried to give the impression that Sirius had only just turned up from Merlin knows where and I didn't know the whole story. I put him on to Dumbledore for that. I said that I was having an after-work drink with you and Tonks and Moody, and crazy old Moody got a brain wave that something was wrong, and the three of us went along to humor him. That was pretty lame, and Scrimgeour knew quite well I wasn't telling the truth. So he promoted me."

"The Order is legal," interjected Remus, who didn't like the tendency of this story at all.

"More or less," agreed Minerva, "but the Ministry has never viewed it warmly. I don't know if open warfare will make the climate better or worse. I don't know if a Scrimgeour administration will make the climate better or worse. Worse, from what Kingsley says. Scrimgeour likes to be in charge, and he's a lot sharper than Cornelius Fudge."

"Well, at any rate, I've got to be going," said Kingsley, shaking hands all around. "This may be goodbye for a while. I'll just look in on Tonks, and then I'm off." He picked up a slim leather briefcase and strode out.

Remus sat with Minerva for another fifteen minutes, detailing her students' exploits in the battle at the Department of Mysteries as she listened with wry pride and moist eyes. Remus once again had a sensation that the world had gone topsy-turvy; he was comforting the woman who had been his teacher, his head of house, his mentor.

When the lime-clad Healer arrived, he left her and walked down the glimmering white hallway to Room 412. He could hear that Tonks had another visitor—a woman with an insistent staccato voice.

"—know what he is, don't you? It was in _Witch Weekly_ a couple years ago—you were still in Auror training then and I know you weren't reading the papers—he tried to teach at Hogwarts and got sacked because—"

"Thank you, I know exactly what kind of man Remus Lupin is."

"Well, I don't know what you've been up to in your off hours, and I probably don't want to know, but I think you should think twice about running around with—"

"Werewolves are only dangerous on the night of the full moon. And not very dangerous then, if they're on the Wolfsbane Potion."

There a hissing sound, a sharp intake of breath. "Nymphadora, common sense ought to tell you—"

"What I'm telling you is absolutely the last word in healing research."

"Academic knowledge isn't everything. You always put too much store in books, and not enough in garden-variety everyday good judgment—"

"Well, yes, I have chosen to _use_ my intelligence and my magical abilities. And not just for frosting biscuits."

There was a silence. Remus loitered in the hallway, wondering whether to stay or go or to go and have tea and come back when the staccato-voiced visitor departed. But Tonks called suddenly, "Come in!"

He went in.

Standing on the far side of Tonks's hospital bed, fussing with her blankets, was a dazzlingly handsome witch with ash-blonde hair, piercing dark eyes, and a delicately rose-tinted complexion. Though the incipient crows' feet about her eyes hinted that she would not see forty again, her figure retained a willowy, almost girlish athleticism. She was dressed from head to toe in the best Muggle chic.

Tonks, propped up on pillows and dressed in flimsy pink pajamas with a pattern of telescopes, looked headachy, strained, and tired. Her hair was more mouse-colored than pink. Only her piercing gaze echoed the appearance of the woman standing over her.

"Remus Lupin," said Tonks firmly, "please meet my mother."

He extended his hand. Andromeda hesitated, then shook it gingerly. They eyed each other without enthusiasm.

"You must be pleased to see Tonks looking so much better," said Remus. "Madam Pomfrey was rather worried about her last Friday."

"Nymphadora chose a dangerous line of work," observed Andromeda. "Given her much celebrated intellectual talent, she could have done better."

"My mother was just leaving," said Tonks with emphasis. "She has several errands to run, and she wouldn't want to miss _Wanda the Wistful Wandmaker_. It's her favorite soap."

"Chuh! Nymphadora—"

"Sirius spoke very highly of you," interrupted Remus, desperately. "He's—" He choked up and broke off. "He's a great loss," was what Remus had meant to say, but the words wouldn't come over the lump in his throat. "He's dead, and we're miserable, and you don't seem to understand at all," pulsed through his head.

"He was a talented boy," said Andromeda regretfully. "I liked him. I am delighted to hear his name has been cleared. But I don't like this cloak-and-dagger business, and I don't see what Sirius accomplished by throwing his life away just when he was on the point of being able to live normally again. He should have known better than to have anything to do with my eldest sister. And there is a great deal about his relations with you, and his relations with my daughter, and _your_ relations with my daughter, that I do not understand."

They faced each other, like two silent, angry tigers, across Tonks's hospital bed.

Tonks took a deep breath and said firmly, "Mother, it is time for you to go."

Somewhat to Remus's surprise, Andromeda went, leaving a trail of frosted biscuits, outdated _Witch Weeklies_, and "suitable" nightclothes in her wake. "Stay in bed and get plenty of rest," she admonished Tonks as she left. "Don't let the Healers let you leave too soon."

"I'm feeling much better," said Tonks coldly.

"Be sensible, Nymphadora. You're not as healthy as other people." She slammed the door behind her.

Remus didn't quite know what to say. He opened and shut his mouth like a goldfish. The sentence that finally emerged was, "Your mother doesn't know about the Order."

"No," agreed Tonks.

"Sirius used to talk about her very affectionately. I had gotten a completely different impression."

"I gather she was more fun when she was younger. Before the war. The First War."

Sirius, as a young man, had liked fun women. Sirius had liked some women who were downright wild. Sirius had been an exceptionally handsome, virile, slightly roguish young man; he had gravitated towards women not unlike himself, though they never lasted long. But Sirius had never had any truck with cowardice.

"Sirius romanticized her," said Tonks, as if reading his thoughts. "Because she was beautiful. Because she ran away, just like he did a few years later. Because she didn't get along with Bella either, and because she hated the Dark Arts. But for very different reasons. Sirius, nutter that he was, had an innate decency to him. My mother has an innate instinct to eat as many frosted biscuits as possible and die in bed." She sighed. "If you don't mind, I really don't want to talk about my parents."

"You've hardly said a word against them," protested Remus. "I—sensed—that you weren't close, but I had no idea things were so difficult. You have such a fun personality."

Tonks grimaced. "Well, I feel like celebrating every day that I don't have to spend with them," she retorted. "Please talk to me about something else. And not Sirius, either, unless you really want me to start crying."

Remus bit his lip. "Neville," he said after a moment. "Let's talk about Neville. How would you go about teaching Neville to conjure a Patronus?"


	13. Another Boggart

Author note: This chapter contains a line of dialogue from J. K. Rowling, _Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix _(New York: Scholastic, 2003), p. 869.

**Chapter 13: Another Boggart**

Returning to Hogwarts the next day, Remus told Neville about his visit to St. Mungo's and added that Tonks remembered him, that she remembered morphing for him, that she remembered reading aloud to him when he was six. Neville's face lit up, and to his glee, he actually succeeded in producing a vaporous, misty Patronus. "It still wouldn't repel a dementor, though," complained Neville fretfully. Remus was in all honesty bound to agree with him. He doubted it would repel a boggart.

Tonks left St. Mungo's on the morning of the day that the Hogwarts term ended. Her hair was pink and spiky. Her face was thin and wan, but she had recovered something of her former spirit. After a lengthy meeting over luncheon at the Burrow, she accompanied Molly and Arthur, Remus and Mad-Eye to the King's Cross to meet the returning Weasleys and Harry. She seemed to take pleasure in standing in Sirius's shoes, in threatening the Dursleys about what would happen "if we find out you've been horrible to Harry—" She seemed to take pleasure in becoming one of Harry's surrogate family.

When the Dursleys, Weasleys, and Grangers were gone, and Mad-Eye Moody had stumped off on a secret errand, Tonks turned to Remus. "Where next?"

"I ought to go to Lancashire, to the Longbottoms. I promised Neville that I would keep working with him, and I don't actually know if I'll have any more free time after the Order's meeting tomorrow." He hadn't told her about the werewolf mission, and technically Dumbledore hadn't told him about it yet, but he was pretty sure he knew what was coming. So this might be it. "Would you like to come?"

Her face lit up. For the first time since Sirius's death, she looked genuinely happy.

He put his arm around her. "Let's go then."

Augusta Longbottom lived in a ramshackle old house in a microscopic village in Lancashire. The house—an Elizabethan core dressed in mid-Victorian frippery—had once been a Muggle parsonage. Francis Longbottom had acquired it soon after the Muggle war of 1914-1918 and "converted" it to wizarding standards just as Muggle grooms, round about then, had been converting other rambling Victorian homes to electricity for their Muggle brides. Francis was nearly ten years dead, his son and namesake tortured into madness, but Augusta still reigned supreme.

She opened the door to them herself, an elderly and intimidating witch in an Edwardian dress of green velvet, her old-fashioned, wide-brimmed hat surmounted by an enormous stuffed vulture. "Remus Lupin," she said loudly. "Nymphadora. I know why you're here."

"I—uh—thank you, Mrs. Longbottom—"

"Come in," she said. "In the parlor. Open the piano."

Remus saw no point in arguing. He followed Tonks into the parlor and opened the piano. A glittering full moon spun out and flew straight at him.

"I've been saving it for you!" boomed Augusta Longbottom. "Ah, here's my grandson! He'll do me proud yet. Go on, Neville." She pushed him into the parlor. Neville tripped on the edge of the rug. The boggart, hearing him, spun around and turned into a dementor.

He's really come a long way, thought Remus, if he's more afraid of fear now than he is of Severus Snape.

"I'll send Poufy up with cocoa," announced Mrs. Longbottom cheerfully. "Have fun!"

"Poufy?" murmured Remus as their hostess strode away.

"House elf," muttered Tonks.

Neville was pointing a borrowed wand at the dementor, shouting, "Expecto Patronum! Expecto Patronum!" The wand emitted tiny wisps of formless vapor.

Tonks stepped in front of him. The boggart turned into a writhing green baby. Neville and Remus both stared. Tonks exclaimed, "Riddikulus!" and forced it back into the piano, to the sound of discordant chords and crushing keys.

"The memory you're using isn't strong enough, Neville," she said. "What else have you got?"

"I've tried everything I can think of," said Neville.

"Sometimes it's best not to rely on happy memories," said Tonks, "especially when you're facing a dementor. Just pick something _strong_. Here, let's have another go." She opened the closet, and the boggart glided out again.

"Expecto Patronum!" shouted Neville. The vaporous wisps slowed the boggart dementor slightly, but only slightly. "Expecto Patronum!" In sixty seconds, the boggart dementor had Neville on the floor.

Poufy entered with a silver pot of cocoa and three china cups on a tray. She was very small, even for a house elf, and although it was hard to discern a house elf's age, she looked like an underfed adolescent maidservant in a toga made of sheeting. She took one look at the dementor and dropped her tray on the fraying Persian carpet. China shattered and chocolate spilled. The boggart dementor whirled around, transformed itself into a pretty blue frock, and flew at her. Poufy ran away squeaking.

"She's been well treated," commented Tonks, "for a house elf."

The boggart saw Tonks and turned into a writhing blue baby with red hair.

Remus propped Neville up against a chair leg. He poured the dregs of cocoa from the silver pot into the only unbroken teacup and handed it to him. "Drink," he said. "Carry some chocolate with you at all times from now on. It's a good remedy."

"Neville, what's on your mind?" asked Tonks abruptly.

"The Department of Mysteries," blurted Neville. "The Death Eater's head in the jar. He broke my wand—"

"Use it," said Tonks.

"U-u-use it? It's not a ha-happy m-memory—"

"It's strong. It'll do. Use it."

Neville looked from Tonks to Remus. His mouth formed a question.

"You were happy to be fighting, weren't you?" asked Remus quietly.

"I was excited. And scared. I told Harry he had to let us come—"

"Use it, Neville," said Remus.

Tonks handed off the boggart. It turned into a dementor and glided forward. Neville screwed up his face and cried "Expecto Patronum!" His wand released a silvery bowtruckle—misty but distinct.

They spent the rest of the afternoon putting Neville through his paces and stayed to supper. "I'm glad some good came of that battle in the Department of Mysteries," remarked Tonks as they strode out into the yard to disapparate.

"Considerable good came of it. The prophecy was smashed; there's no way Voldemort can get it now. We don't have to expend time and energy on guard duty any more. And we put, oh, six or seven Death Eaters back in Azkaban."

"But not Bellatrix Lestrange."

"But not Bellatrix Lestrange," acknowledged Remus.

Tonks sighed. "Sirius died alone, didn't he? I mean—he had us. And Harry. But no parents, no children, no siblings, no wife, no girlfriend. Not even a fierce old grandmother. I don't know if that's good or bad."

"Sirius didn't have girlfriends," muttered Remus without thinking. "He had one-night stands."

Tonks flinched.

"I'm sorry, Tonks, I shouldn't have said that. I'm probably not being fair."

"You probably _are_ being fair."

Remus shrugged. "Probably. I knew him too well to—well, I knew him well enough that I know things about him that probably ought not be said."

"I'll always be glad to hear you talk about Sirius. Good or bad or all mixed up. Anything you remember, anything you can tell me. Don't protect me."

"What are you chuckling about?"

"You and Sirius. Rake and celibate. Daredevil dog and tame werewolf. What a pair. Did James represent a normal, happy medium?"

"James represented the adoration of Lily Evans. Always and only Lily. Lily by day, Lily by night. Lily in summer, Lily in winter. Year after year after year. It drove _me_ batty, and I had a crush on her myself." Remus paused. "Don't blame Sirius too much, Tonks. It was a phase. Those two years after he ran away from home, before he joined the Order, were hard years for him. He took it out in—various ways. It wasn't entirely his fault that he was wild."

"Oh, and you had a much easier life."

"I did rather. I had parents I loved, and I didn't have a younger brother who was an aspiring Death Eater. I had friends who cared about me enough to become Animagi on my behalf. Not such a great idea, really, but we were sixteen—" He paused, wondering how much he could tell her. Should tell her. He took the plunge. "Until I was sixteen, I thought that being bitten by a werewolf was the worst thing that could happen to a person. Then I realized that the worst thing that could happen to a person was being a werewolf who bit someone."

She blanched but held herself steady. "How—what—"

"I didn't do it. I almost did. Severus—while, you know Severus was in my year at Hogwarts. Severus was bright and nosy and he had that running feud with James and Sirius. Like James and Sirius, he noticed that I got sick every month, at regular intervals, and he became curious about it. Sirius tipped him off about the secret passage and how to get past the Whomping Willow. He followed me one night—I didn't know—and even if I had, the wolf has no judgment and no pity." Remus sighed. "James found out—he ran after Severus and pulled him back. He saved him. He probably saved his life."

"Sirius did _that_!"

Remus took her hand and rubbed it gently. "I know. I know."

Tonks was silent for a long time. "I really miss him," she said at last.

"So do I. So do I."


	14. Breaking Up

**Chapter 14: Breaking Up**

The day that Neville learned to conjure a Patronus was Remus's last day off for a long time. The battle at the Ministry had unleashed a new phase in Voldemort's campaign for power; as Remus had predicted months ago, sitting on a London park bench, things began to get much worse. Remus heard, with faint incredulity, of the Death Eaters' "hurricane" in the West Country. He heard, with mounting anger, of the collapse of the Brockdale Bridge. He heard, with cold, stabbing fear, of the locked-room murder of Amelia Bones, one of the most gifted witches of her generation.

His head hurt constantly, and he was having a lot of violent dreams.

Tonks, who had seemed cheerful the day she was released from St. Mungo's, turned glummer and glummer as each edition of the _Daily Prophet_ brought more and more bitter news. She wanted, Remus knew, to be hunting Death Eaters, Bellatrix Lestrange for choice, but she had been overruled; stealth and tracking was not her strength, and much of the Order doubted Tonks had the necessary detachment to trail Bellatrix properly. Instead, she had been assigned to monitor the activities of Rufus Scrimgeour, former head of the Auror Office, now Minister of Magic. Scrimgeour, who calculated the press's potential response to every move and liked no one, nevertheless thought Tonks was a cute little girl and threw her sundry noncommittal observations as one might throw bones to a favorite dog. His attitude of indulgent condescension was not calculated to improve Tonks's temper. Though Tonks picked up several useful tidbits, she continued to chafe at her enforced inactivity. She spent all her spare time sitting around Molly's kitchen with her head in her hands, drinking cup after cup of weak tea. Her hair was once again fading mousy brown. She was having trouble with her morphing. Molly advised Remus that Tonks was embarrassed about it and it was better not to mention it.

"The only bit of fun I've had since June was raiding the Malfoys," complained Tonks to Remus after dinner one night, as they walked out through the fields behind the Burrow in the fading July sun. "And that was under Ministry auspices. Six of us went, and we found a ghoul, a talking skeleton, and a bunch of cursebooks that would hardly fool a Muggle. Very exciting afternoon."

"Arthur told me once that the Malfoys keep their prized possessions under the living room floor."

"Arthur came along, and we tore up the floorboards," said Tonks. "Nothing. Other than that it's been paperwork, paperwork, paperwork . . . Robards doesn't trust me to do _anything_. He treats me like a bloody teenaged secretary."

"It may not be an issue of doubting your abilities, Tonks. It may be an issue of doubting your loyalties. Remember how Kingsley got 'kicked upstairs'?"

"I thought the whole point of my monitoring Scrimgeour was that he wasn't supposed to have any notion that I was anything more than I seemed. Or is that assignment just pap the Order is feeding me to make me feel better?"

"No," said Remus firmly. "It was a surprise appointment. We don't know nearly as much as we need to about Scrimgeour. And you got stuck with the assignment because you were the only one who seemed likely to discover anything of use."

"The only thing that old vampire is up to is promoting himself so that he won't get toppled like Fudge," muttered Tonks grumpily.

"Tonks, if you keep referring to Scrimgeour as a vampire, people are going to start believing he actually is one."

Tonks shrugged. "I don't like doing nothing," she said in a more balanced tone, throwing herself down on the grass. Remus knelt beside her. "I just keep thinking about Sirius. And why it hurts so much. I know I told you in hospital that he felt like a big brother to me. A brother who would tease and rile me. But in some ways he also felt like a little brother that I could fuss over and discipline and tuck in. It was a nice fantasy. I always wanted a brother. Or possibly several brothers and a sister," she added, plucking blades of grass. "I like big families."

"Your parents didn't want any more children?"

"The Healers told them not to have any more."

"Why not?"

"I'm a Metamorphmagus. They used to think it was hereditary." Remus waited for her to elaborate, but she didn't. "I'm living on borrowed time anyway," she muttered after a minute, sitting up.

"Aurors always feel like that. I've heard even Muggle soldiers feel like that. But it's not true, Tonks. There will be a life after the war. Especially for those who are young, like you." Remus paused. "And even for those like me, who aren't."

"You're ancient, you are," said Tonks, with a ghost of a smile.

"I've outlived most of the best wizards and witches of my generation," said Remus. "Or at any rate that's what it feels like. All the best ones I knew."

Tonks said nothing. It was only that morning that they had heard about Emmeline Vance. She fingered the back of his hand, playing connect the dots with his freckles and his scars.

"Of course, there is the rising generation," said Remus, after a minute. "You."

"Harry."

"Hermione."

"Neville," said Tonks, smiling.

"Neville," acknowledged Remus. He realized, abruptly, that Neville's image now came clearly to him, an almost grown-up soldier in Dumbledore's Army, with frailties and strengths and individual foibles clearly sketched in his mind, even as Frank and Alice—who had been so kind to him in those dim and distant days before Neville's birth—were fading into cloudy abstraction.

"I was _happy_ in the last war," said Remus with emphasis. "It's crazy, but I was. I didn't like fighting as much as Sirius did. But as long as I could fight Voldemort, I had a purpose in life. The Order needed me; it almost didn't matter that I was a werewolf. I never felt so lucky. And then one grim autumn week and bang: James dead, Lily dead, Peter dead, and Sirius Black, a vicious murderer sentenced to life in Azkaban. A world had been destroyed."

He paused and impulsively slipped his hand over hers. "At least we were wrong about Sirius. And when he died, he died well—fighting for a cause he believed in and a person he loved. One of my bitterest thoughts after James and Lily died was that they died thinking that I was the one who had betrayed them. I suppose, actually, they realized it was Peter in the end."

"What did you do after the war?" she asked softly.

"Well, I slept for a month. I slept practically straight through from one transformation to the next, except for the hours I spent replaying my friends' murders in my head. There just didn't seem to be anything worth getting out of bed for. Then Dumbledore sent for me. He told me what had been done for Harry. He told me that someday Harry was going to want and need to talk to me, because I was the only one of his father's friends left. And then he told me that he had arranged some private tutoring jobs for me, and I was to start immediately. I traveled around to wizarding families whom Dumbledore thought might be in danger and gave them refresher lessons on Defense against the Dark Arts. Then later I started working with children—children who had failed their OWLs or younger children who just needed to be taught how to control their magical abilities so they wouldn't make too much mayhem before they got to Hogwarts." Remus paused. "I think Dumbledore assigned me to work with children deliberately. He realized that it was eating me up that I couldn't have any."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, well, if I had been healthy, I would have liked to have had a son or a daughter or two—or maybe six. It set in more deeply as I got older, after my friends died, after my parents died. An idle daydream."

"Is it hereditary?"

"Lycanthropy? No. But it doesn't matter. So many werewolves bite their own children."

"That was before the Wolfsbane Potion was invented."

Remus shook his head. "A lot of werewolves bite their children intentionally, Tonks. They get jealous, because the children are healthy and they aren't."

"You wouldn't do that."

"I don't know what I would or wouldn't do. No, I wouldn't bite a child deliberately. I wouldn't bite anyone deliberately. But it's murder, being dependent month in and month out on some complicated potion you don't even know how to make, and knowing that it's the only thing keeping you from destroying those you love. A werewolf really isn't fit to be responsible for anyone."

Tonks brushed his cheek. "I think you would make a good father."

"Thank you. But you know that no woman in her right mind would marry a werewolf."

"I would."

Remus stared at her, more startled than surprised. He should have seen this coming.

"Sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I know I shouldn't have said that. I always let my tongue run away with me." She pulled her hand away.

"Tonks—you must know by now—if there were any way I could marry a woman—but there isn't."

"I really don't understand why not."

"You simply don't understand the risk."

"I understand risk. I just don't mind it very much."

"That's ridiculous, Tonks. You have a long and happy life ahead of you." Remus sighed. "After the war. And it is going to be bad, and there are going to be more deaths. But it will end someday, and you will meet the sort of man you deserve . . . You're an exceptionally gifted witch, endowed with a brilliant mind and special powers, and bravery, and kindness. You've got the world at your feet. Make smart choices."

Tonks laughed hollowly. "I think you see me through rose-colored glasses, Remus."

"I'm not the only one who thinks you're brilliant. Alfred Bones told me you were a living marvel."

"You've been discussing me with Alfred Bones?" Tonks sounded startled and not particularly pleased.

"Just in passing."

"Oh."

"What?"

"That explains it."

"Explains what?"

"Why you didn't actually learn anything."

Remus felt slightly annoyed. Heart-to-hearts were all very well, and he understood why Tonks was momentarily angry, but at the moment she was the one who was failing to understand or learn anything. He was tempted to tell her that _she_ would benefit from an intelligent discussion with Alfred Bones.

"Tonks," he said firmly, "I can't."


	15. Goodbye to All That

**Chapter 15: Goodbye to All That**

In the weeks that followed this exchange, Remus saw little of Tonks: once creeping out of the Burrow as he entered it—she disapparated before he could speak her name—twice at meetings of the Order—but their once weekly meetings were becoming rare. Everyone was just too busy, including Dumbledore, who disappeared without a word to anyone and returned a week later with a crippled, blackened hand. Remus didn't regret the lack of meetings that summer; they were turning into charades, and grim ones at that. He was growing more and more certain that there was something fundamental at stake that Dumbledore had not revealed to anyone.

Remus was still working long days on the werewolf project. Dumbledore had told him that he would be going underground in the autumn. After the Hogwarts term started, because Dumbledore would be traveling for the rest of the summer and he wanted Remus at headquarters "in case anything happened." In the meantime, Remus was supposed to be training Molly and Hestia to take over his usual job of coordinating intelligence. Molly was admittedly sharp, having raised the twins, and Hestia had always been clever, but all the same, Remus felt wary. Molly greeted each fresh death and disappearance with tears and denial, and Hestia, who was Muggle-born, was taking the intrusion of Voldemort's war into her parents' world very hard. Remus had always thought Hestia had a heart of dragon hide. The person he really wanted to succeed him was Minerva, but it was out of the question; she would be entirely occupied at Hogwarts when the term began, and she was also (though few members of the Order knew this) keeping a great many appointments at St. Mungo's. The Stunners had left her with permanent heart damage.

The descent of Grimmauld Place had at long last been cleared up; it was Harry's and the Order could move back in. Tonks was detailed to clean up the damage that the house, allied with Kreacher, had done in their absence. It wasn't Remus's decision, and he considered it a little tactless of Dumbledore. The shock of Sirius's death swept over him anew every time he walked into Grimmauld Place. He was sure that Tonks, too, felt Sirius's presence in the very air. She didn't say so, of course. She merely fumed about housekeeping detail, in a manner highly reminiscent of her cousin. For the first time, Remus saw the family resemblance between them. It was all in the flashing dark eyes.

He found her in the living room, curtains drawn against the hot August sunlight, mercilessly tackling a boggart that had lodged itself under the sofa. It glided out from among the broken springs and turned—to Remus's continuing puzzlement though no longer to his surprise—into a writhing purple baby with thirteen fingers and an overbite.

"Tonks—why—"

"Riddikulus!" cried Tonks, flicking her wand. The baby snapped its thirteen chubby fingers and danced the Charleston. She manipulated her wand; it danced faster and faster. Remus tried to laugh, but his throat caught and the sound just wouldn't come.

Tonks laughed joylessly. She flicked her wand and finished off the boggart.

"Tonks—why?"

She looked at him, distaste scarcely hiding the hurt.

"Tonks, you're a genius with children. Even purple ones, I'm sure. Why, in this horrible war—"

"You thought my boggart would be something sweet and fluffy and impersonal, Remus? A nice big spider, perhaps? A gangling mummy? A creepy hooded dementor?"

He had never for a moment considered what else her boggart might be. "I'm not used to seeing you afraid," he said quietly.

"It's none of your business, Remus," she said, "but my boggart is me. Just like yours is you." She took three steps forward, turned, and was gone.

* * *

Remus had been dreading going underground, but by the middle of August it was starting to seem like a welcome escape. A miserable assignment, to be sure, just about the worst he could have dreamed up for himself, but it was away—far away—from all the grim human complications that were dogging his footsteps now. He could be alone with his grief and come back whole. Sort of. And Tonks would learn to forget. She wouldn't like it, but after this she would have to remember he was a werewolf.

"You don't have quite the temperament for a double agent," said Dumbledore meditatively, "but you'll do. Keep your cover simple. Say as little about yourself as possible, and let what you say be close to the truth. You're not a man to tell a convincing lie."

"If Fenrir Greyback figures out—"

"He will figure it out," said Dumbledore calmly. "He's intelligent. And _he_ had the wizarding education that he seems so eager to deny other werewolves. He'll realize quickly enough that you've lived among wizards. Don't try to lie to him. Don't place too much faith in your cover. You will have to get him to accept you some other way."

"He'll murder me in my sleep," said Remus, more to himself than to Dumbledore.

"No, I don't think so," said the headmaster. "He'll try to court you. He'll give you a chance."

"Merlin!"

"I trust you, Remus. I can't give you many instructions for this assignment. You'll have to use your own judgment, make your own decisions. I'll see you upstairs at the Hog's Head on the night of December 22nd." Dumbledore fished in the pockets of his robe with his one good hand. He handed Remus a Cadbury fruit and nut bar, as if he were eleven years old.

There was one last thing Remus needed to say. "Headmaster—"

"Albus," said Dumbledore.

"I still see you as my headmaster," admitted Remus.

"I see you as my colleague and deputy. Continue."

"Albus, I'm a little concerned about Tonks. She's been stuck on desk work all summer at the Ministry, and her assignments for the Order are driving her crazy. If there's anyone else who could keep tabs on Scrimgeour—or if there is anything Tonks could do in addition to monitoring Scrimgeour—I think it would cheer her up a bit. She's having a hard summer."

Dumbledore studied him silently. "Have you talked to her recently?" he asked.

"Well—er—not very recently, but a good bit in June and July. She's taking Sirius's death hard. She's full of pent-up frustration about not being able to fight. Fighting boggarts in Grimmauld Place doesn't help."

Dumbedore nodded slowly, stroking his long white beard. "As it happens, I have already asked Gawain Robards to assign Nymphadora to the team patrolling Hogwarts and Hogsmeade. She'll be transferred next week."

"Oh, thank you!"

"It's not an easy assignment, nor is it a particularly safe one," Dumbledore pointed out gently. "There's been a great deal of excitement at Hogwarts in the last four years, and Severus has notified me of certain developments that may make Hogwarts a center of interest this year as well."

"I don't think Tonks wants an assignment that's easy or safe," explained Remus. "I think she wants to lose herself in something as complicated and dangerous as possible. And she's very good with children."

Dumbledore looked at him thoughtfully. "You don't mind seeing Nymphadora face danger?"

"I—well, she's an Auror. I'm not exactly thrilled about it, but I think I care more about her happiness than her safety at this point."

Dumbledore nodded. "Remus, you're a wise young man. Sometimes it's good to take chances."

As so often in his conversations with Dumbledore, Remus left the room wondering more about what the headmaster had withheld than about what he had told.

* * *

He spent the last night before term began at the Burrow. It was a smaller gathering than the old parties in Grimmauld Place had been, and scarcely as cheerful. At least Harry looked well. He and Ginny were talking excitedly of Quidditch. Remus gathered that Ginny was hoping to get back on the Gryffindor team. He had seen her fly; she was very good. All the children—were they still children?—looked eager to be going back to school. Molly, on the other hand, looked positively sick with worry, and Arthur still wasn't home yet.

Hermione sat in a corner and warbled to him of NEWTs and OWLs. "Your father worked in Healing, didn't he? Do you think an E in Defense against the Dark Arts would prevent me from training as a Healer? I mean, if I went on and got really good NEWTs—they wouldn't hold it against me, would they? It's an awfully competitive field, but _so_ interesting. I got this fascinating book about rare wizarding syndromes from Flourish and Blotts—"

Remus was seized by a sudden inspiration. "Hermione, do you know anything about the medical aspects of Metamorphmagi?"

"It's another name for the underdeveloped melodermal-3 gene, isn't it? Incomplete formation of the epidermis and skeletal muscles and incomplete binding of melanin to the skin and hair."

"Is there any reason why people would fear it?"

Hermione, who still related to Remus as Professor Lupin, looked startled that a teacher would ask a question for information. "Well, it usually affects the brain as well as the skin and hair. Most people who have it die by the age of three, or else they grow up severely retarded and die as young adults. Tonks is really unusual."

"Yes," said Remus softly, "she is."


	16. Life on Hold

**Chapter 16: Life on Hold**

In September, when summer was fading from the fields around the Burrow and the first tawny leaves were stealing onto the trees of Hogsmeade, Remus went underground and joined the werewolves. Before departing, he went to St. Mungo's and tried to make an appointment with Healer Bones. Healer Bones's secretary expressed considerable surprise at this. "He's in hiding. He had a death threat. You know his sister was murdered this summer? No wizarding family gave more in the First War than the Boneses did. You-Know-Who sent Death Eaters after their wives, their siblings, their children. Vicious. He hates the Boneses. No, I can't say when Healer Bones will be back. Give me your name and I'll send you an owl."

That was, of course, impossible; owls from St. Mungo's would blow his cover. With a feeling of immense frustration, Remus made an appointment for December 23rd, when he would be visiting the Burrow.

* * *

Remus's autumn with the werewolves was a strange and bitter season. A hazy, dreamlike quality prevailed, as one day dragged into another, into a full moon, a waning moon, a waxing moon, a full moon, and round again. His initial sentence—for Remus, after forty-eight hours, quickly came to call it thus in conversations with himself—was a hundred days. After that he would report to Dumbledore.

The good news was that Fenrir Greyback was not, as had been rumored among wizards, assembling an army of werewolves to place at the disposal of the Dark Lord. Greyback had, to be sure, gathered some two hundred followers in the mountains of Wales, but the gang was in no way united in purpose. Few of its members took orders from anyone, even Greyback himself. Few agreed on what their goals were. Some were aspiring Death Eaters, eager to mimic Greyback or outdo him. Others were petty thieves, raiding farmhouses and channeling stolen goods with a lowlife ingenuity that would have thrilled Mundungus Fletcher; Remus could not help but wonder if some patchy illegal network of crime might not link some of his new acquaintances to his old colleague. Some still lived on the margins of the wizarding world, with settled homes, even jobs in a few cases; they appeared intermittently, often at the full moon, "to catch up on the news." Still others were, in Muggle terminology, "clinically depressed." They passed their days drinking stolen whiskey and sleeping in the fields and could barely be roused to conversation.

Indeed, conversing with individual werewolves—the strategy in which Dumbledore had set so much store—was harder by far than Remus had anticipated. Werewolf relationships were not the same as human relationships. Remus, who in wizarding society seldom forgot his condition for five minutes together, was puzzled to discover how poorly he fit in among the werewolves. All were literate; many were educated; a few, at least, were articulate when they chose to be. But the personal interactions of those who made their lives in Greyback's community were conducted in choppy series of insults, rebukes, and threats, grunts, growls, and snarls, a language more troll than human. Those who merely visited the community were, by and large, more conversible than those who made their homes there, and more interested in what Remus had to say, but even they tended to look upon their monthly sojourns with Greyback as a brief hiatus from the complexities of human relationships, the restraints of human decency.

This hiatus took many forms. Violence was the werewolf's natural impulse, and Greyback would gladly have channeled all his gang's energy, untransformed as well as transformed, into tactical violence. His current agenda was biting children and raising them wild. But as the moon waxed and as it waned, many of the werewolf men and women directed their angry energy into other avenues. They hunted animals for food, or killed them for pleasure. They drank and cussed. They fought. Some shot dope. Hook-ups were rife, though lasting relationships were rare. Remus struggled to hide his shock.

His background made it harder. If he had been Muggle-born . . . But Remus had grown up in the nurturing bosom of Britain's ancient wizarding community, a community he knew to be rather straight-laced, even old-fashioned by the standards of the Muggle world.

There were some among Remus's cohort who had ventured out to explore that world—Sirius, for one, especially in the two years after he had run away from home and before he had joined the Order. Remus remembered, as if from another life, the Gryffindor common room. He remembered Hestia Jones, aged about sixteen, tucked in the largest armchair, black leather miniskirt riding up her thighs, slender fingers caressing shapely knees, regaling the company with tales of her Muggle childhood.

"And then he put his hand up my skirt—"

Peter tittered. James wasn't even listening; he was leaning on the back of Lily's chair and trying to put his arm around her.

Lily shook him off. "Come off it, Jones! You were twelve."

Hestia flipped her short black hair and tilted her pretty chin. "I didn't grow up in a suburb," she said haughtily.

Lisa Ballantyne laughed out loud. Sirius's gaze was smoldering. Remus looked away, fumbled in his robe pockets, took out a section of the embryo Marauder's Map, and started drawing.

Remus had worried about Sirius's adventures, knowing that he was, like many purebloods, as innocent as a babe in arms about the practical dimensions of Muggle life. What might he let slip, in an unguarded moment, to any of his score of Muggle girls? Why couldn't he stick to Hestia? Sirius had conducted these adventures alone, for James paid no heed to any girl but Lily and Sirius scorned to be saddled with Peter. Remus had resolutely refused Sirius's invitations to accompany him, though Sirius had once accompanied Remus on an adventure of his own. They had gone to Cambridge, to see an outdoor production of _As You Like It_ in a college courtyard. Sirius, bored, had rolled the program into a fake wand and shot fake spells at the stage furniture as Remus had mooned over Rosalind—or the girl who played Rosalind—he had, at seventeen, found it difficult to distinguish between the two. He had seen _As You Like It_ three more times that summer, alone.

That was not the sort of adventure that anyone in Fenrir Greyback's community could possibly understand. Their nerves were dulled to the finer feelings, the finer distinctions of human life, whether by the constant company of werewolves or by the strain of living a dual life, now in wizarding society, now in Greyback's gang. One of the strangest developments in all that strange season of Remus's life was the emergence of a deep, unexpected sympathy for Severus Snape. Severus, who had lived a double life for fifteen years and who—Remus knew—did it far better than he did or ever would. Who spoke two languages and served two masters. Who bore all the mental anguish and strain of crossing between a world he detested and a world that detested him.

But Severus has an advantage over me, Remus thought hopelessly. Severus has left the Death Eaters, at least to the extent that anyone can leave that wretched organization. Severus had a choice, and he has exercised it. And I—I will always be a werewolf.

* * *

It was November—waxing moon—when he noticed a teenager in the camp. A short, scruffy boy, with a snoutlike nose and dank, grubby hair. He lolled under a tree, smoking cigarettes and thumbing a magazine. He looked about fifteen: Ginny's age.

Remus walked straight up and introduced himself. The boy said nothing in return, but he tossed him the pack of cigarettes.

"I don't smoke."

"Oh," said the boy inconsequentially. "I do." He returned to his magazine.

Remus opened his backpack and tossed the child a small bottle.

"What is this?"

"Shampoo."

The boy cocked his head, puzzled. "Will it make me drunk fast?"

"I don't recommend drinking it," said Remus. The boy lost interest. "You use it to wash your hair."

"Why in hell would anyone wash hair?" exclaimed the boy, letting the magazine drop from his hand.

A blush rose involuntarily in Remus's face. It was the hottest porn he had ever seen.

"Women are people, you know," said Remus, picking up the magazine, rolling it shut, and handing it back to the child. "Not objects."

The boy looked puzzled. "I don't know any women who are people," he objected. "All the women I know are werewolves."

"What's your name?"

"Longsnout."

"Your other name," said Remus patiently. "Surely your parents don't call you Longsnout?"

Suddenly, the boy looked embarrassed. "I—well—I think they called me Jonathan."

"And your surname?"

"What's a surname?"

"Your last name? Your family name? The name that you and your parents and your siblings all share?"

The boy looked puzzled. Slowly, he shook his head. He continued to shake it, twitchingly, maniacally, faster and faster. He jumped, he turned, he ran.

Remus was in good training. He pursued the boy, chased him straight across the camp, past the garbage ditch (but garbage was strewn everywhere), and half-way down the muddy creek beside the mountain. The boy lay splayed on the banks of the creek, where he had tripped and fallen. Remus pulled him out of the water and propped him against a boulder to dry in the chilly afternoon sunlight.

"Tell me," he commanded. "I know a lot about werewolves."

"My name is Jonathan Longsnout," panted the boy. "I _don't_ have parents. I _don't_ have siblings. I _don't_ have any other name. I belong here. I can_ bite_!"

Slowly, in the days that followed, Remus pieced together his story. There had been a rash of bites at the very end of the First War. Mostly babies, mostly bitten by Fenrir Greyback. Most of them had died. This must be one of the very few who had survived. Who had been raised by wolves. The prototype for Fenrir Greyback's werewolf army.


	17. Mostly Medical

**Chapter 17: Mostly Medical**

"It's survivor's guilt," said Hermione.

-- J. K. Rowling, _Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince_, chapter 5

* * *

He kept his rendezvous with Dumbledore at the Hog's Head on the night of December 22nd. He was relieved to hear that Healer Bones had returned.

"The death threat was cancelled?" Remus had asked in the upstairs room, at a quarter to midnight, by the light of a dying fire.

"Remus, you've spent the autumn living with a Death Eater," said Dumbledore quietly.

"He decided to live with it."

Dumbledore nodded, his long white beard bucking gently. "I have great respect for Alfred Bones."

Remus rose to leave but Dumbledore called him back. "One last thing. I've asked Severus to teach Nymphadora how to brew the Wolfsbane Potion from scratch. No—Remus, hear me out. In wartime, things can happen. It's best not to be too dependent on one person. Just in case." In wartime, things can happen.

Now, as he walked through the echoing corridors of St. Mungo's research wing on the morning of December 23rd, Remus passed a sweet-faced girl of sixteen or so, with blonde hair cascading down her shoulders and haunted eyes. It was a familiar face; he had taught this girl three years ago at Hogwarts.

"Hannah?" he said gently. "Hannah, are you okay?"

Hannah looked at him like a stricken deer, mouthed "Merry Christmas, Professor Lupin," and scuttled away. As Remus stared after her, Alfred Bones opened the door of his office.

"Remus?"

"Healer Bones. I know that girl—Hannah Abbott. She looks so unhappy. Do you know if she's ill?"

"Not ill, no, just devastated. She's seeing an Emotional Management Healer. She's been coming twice a week. Her mother was murdered three months ago. Stone dead with no visible injuries; it was clearly _Avada Kedavra_." Healer Bones paused. "Just like my sister Amelia," he added wryly.

"She was a great loss," said Remus softly.

Alfred Bones inclined his head. "As was Hannah's mother. Sally Abbott. Do you remember her from Hogwarts, Remus? Sally Maeswick, she was then. Muggle-born."

"Coronet braids," said Remus. "Scandinavian blonde."

"The Maeswicks came from the Orkney Islands. A sept of the original Norse earldom. Poor, though."

"She was a Hufflepuff prefect when I arrived," continued Remus. "I remember playing Exploding Snap with her in the infirmary. I was a first-year and she was a sixth-year and she barely knew who I was. She just heard I was sick and thought she ought to come cheer me up. It was my first term and I hadn't many friends."

"That sounds like her. She wasn't a very powerful witch, sadly, but she was an exceptionally decent and kindly person, and absolutely incorruptible. Just what the Death Eaters hate." Alfred Bones paused. "It was in all the papers, Remus. I think that murder even made the Muggle press. Where have you been that you didn't hear about it?"

Remus opened his mouth and shut it again. "I'm not allowed to tell you that. Actually, I shouldn't even tell you that I can't tell you, but to hell with it, I know which side you're on. So, off the record, I will tell you that I can't."

"Oh. My brother Edgar did some work like that. Strangely enough, he came through it unharmed. He was back at the Ministry, working at a desk job, when he was killed. Good luck, and I won't embarrass you by asking more. Sit down. What can I do for you today?"

Remus settled into a shabby, overstuffed armchair. Every bone in his body ached from three months of living on the run, and he felt a great temptation to curl up with his head on the armrest. "I wanted to ask you about something called an underdeveloped melodermal-3 gene."

"Metamorphmagi?" Alfred Bones was clearly surprised. "Well, I seem to recall that you know Nymphadora Tonks. You must have seen the full range of what a Metamorphmagus can do." He chuckled. "Nymphadora was never shy about demonstrating."

"Is it usually considered an illness?"

Alfred Bones shook his head sadly. "It's usually considered a tragedy, a shame, and a scandal. Wizarding families used to abandon infants who were Metamorphmagi. They feared that public knowledge of it would ruin their other children's marriage prospects. That was when the condition was thought to be hereditary, of course. The research that established that it's a spontaneous mutation only came out a decade ago, and it's not universally accepted. To this day, I think many pureblood families would refuse to marry into a family known to include a Metamorphmagus."

"And most Metamorphmagi grow up retarded?"

"Most Metamorphmagi don't grow up at all. Their muscles and skin morph continuously, their brains—although we don't know this for certain—appear to morph too, and they never learn to control the process. The constant, unstructured morphing wears out their muscles, and they die in early childhood. Some Metamorphmagi with exceptionally strong native constitutions make it to their teens, but their brains are too flexible and unstable to control their bodies. They have difficulty walking, they have difficulty talking, they can't hold a quill or a wand, and their bodies eventually wear out."

Remus thought suddenly of a sickly green, troll-like baby writhing uncontrollably, being made to dance the Charleston in mid-air.

"So Tonks is an exception," he said faintly.

"Nymphadora Tonks is a living marvel, as I think I told you once before. I gather you didn't understand then what I meant?"

Remus shook his head ruefully. "I had no idea this power was so rare. Haven't there been any other Metamorphmagi like her?"

"There've been a few. I could count those from the last three centuries on my fingers." Alfred Bones looked at his fingers. "Maybe on one hand." He opened a liquor cabinet behind his desk and took out a couple of glasses. "You look like you need a drink, Remus. Brandy?"

Remus took the brandy and cupped it in his hands, sitting up in the armchair. "Are Metamorphmagi like Tonks healthy? Do they have normal life spans?"

"As far as we know. It took centuries to establish that high-functioning Metamorphmagi exist. And then there was a lot of speculation that, if they did exist, they were psychologically unstable. I know of two who were probably suicides, one who drank himself to death, and of course Ali Azkabi—"

Ali Azkabi was an early Romantic poet whom Remus had admired as a teenager. "Ali Azkabi was a Metamorphmagus?"

"Yes. Yes, you see, most wizards don't know that. Azkabi was born in Tunis in the 1750s, when there was still a great deal of skepticism about whether high-functioning Metamorphmagi existed. His parents sent him to Hogwarts, thinking that he might thrive in a more liberal atmosphere, but even in Britain, many people were convinced he was a fraud, a normal wizard who had mastered some hitherto unknown appearance charms and used them to pretend he had a medical condition he didn't have. He was a brilliant boy who wanted to become an Auror, but his dubious reputation for honesty nixed that. He bought a small country estate with family gold and devoted himself to poetry and philosophy instead."

"And then he became addicted to Felix Felicis, didn't he?"

"Yes. After his wife died. She and his parents and Dilys Derwent at Hogwarts were just about the only ones who believed he was actually a Metamorphmagus. Once they were all dead, he couldn't handle living any more."

Remus bit his lip and thought about werewolf suicides. The good thing about being a werewolf, he mused ironically, was that other people were only too ready to believe the worst of you. They might hate you, they might fear you, they might cast out of society, but they didn't claim you were hallucinating about your condition.

"I'm skeptical about the psychological instability hypothesis myself," continued Alfred Bones. "In the case of Ali Azkabi, for example, the psychological instability seems to have been created entirely by social conditions."

"Are the Metamorphmagi living today doing better?"

"There are, to my knowledge, only six Metamorphmagi alive today. Four of them are children who will die long before they reach Nymphadora's age. Aside from her, the other high-functioning Metamorphmagus is an Alsatian witch named Elfrida Ellenbogen. She's 119, rather frail and, frankly, getting to be a bit odd in the head, but she's lived a long and full life. Her parents refused to treat her as a curiosity, sent her to a wizarding academy—Beauxbatons, I think it was—and made every effort to give her a normal childhood. It worked. She grew up strong, did original research in Potions, and had two children and five grandchildren, all normal. In fact, she recently had a great-great-grandchild. It was research on Elfrida Ellenbogen's descendants that helped establish that the mutation in the melodermal-3 gene isn't hereditary."

Alfred Bones set his brandy glass down on his desk and surveyed Remus. "Do you want to know more?"

"I want to know everything you can possibly explain in lay terms."

"That isn't much, unfortunately; we're just getting started. Dilys Derwent did some research on high-functioning Metamorphmagi in the final years of her life, after she retired from Hogwarts. In those days there were hardly any documented cases, and she ended up working largely from folklore, stories about witches and wizards who might—given the powers that were attributed to them—have been high-functioning Metamorphmagi. Not many people took Derwent's work seriously and it never got published, but everything we've learned since then confirms her initial conclusions."

Alfred Bones started ticking points off on his fingers. "High-functioning Metamorphmagi are almost indistinguishable from other Metamorphmagi in infancy. They don't morph as continuously or as radically, though, and they start to control their morphing around age two. They tend to be exceptionally bright. When the morphing doesn't destroy the brain, it strengthens it—something about the neural connections. A Muggle Healer might be able to explain it to you; they know more about neuroscience than we do. High-functioning Metamorphmagi tend to be highly creative, and they tend to be risk-takers. Those who live to adolescence generally become fascinated by their morphing abilities and experiment a great deal. Nymphadora Tonks, as I'm sure you heard, was a good example of that. They usually stabilize and stop morphing excessively post-adolescence."

"And?"

"And that's it. Most of the high-functioning Metamorphmagi of the last two hundred years have made significant contributions in their fields, and I'm expecting great things of Nymphadora. If Elfrida Ellenbogen is a good example, then the only real risks after adolescence arise from the sense of isolation and rejection that some Metamorphmagi seem to feel."


	18. Living with People

Author note: This chapter contains dialogue from J. K. Rowling, _Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince _(New York: Scholastic, 2005), pp. 332-337, 340-341.

**Chapter 18: Living with People**

Christmas at the Burrow was a disappointment. It was nothing like Christmas at Grimmauld Place. After a season of living on the run, the idea of slipping drowsily between soft, clean sheets, of eating Molly's savory food, of keeping company with congenial human beings instead of bitter and aggressive beasts, appealed to Remus potently. But within twenty-four hours of his arrival, Remus was awakened to the fact that human life, even at the Burrow, was not a pastoral idyll. The twins, emboldened by their business success, spent half their time designing defensive weaponry and the other half trying to pick up Muggle girls in village. Molly approved of neither activity and said so at some length. Ginny and Fleur sniped at each other continually, Fleur daintily, Ginny cleverly but nonetheless cuttingly. Ginny even sniped at Bill, whom she usually idolized. Ron was grouchy, Harry distracted. Remus could see the ghost of Sirius flitting through Harry's mind in every conversation, at every meal; he knew that Harry thought of Sirius every time he looked at him. A fresh wave of grief washed over him; he couldn't, he simply couldn't, fill Sirius's shoes. Arthur, who was working very long hours at the Ministry, scarcely appeared until Christmas Eve. Then he seemed absent-minded, even withdrawn. Percy, it emerged, was still not speaking to any of them.

Hermione was mysteriously absent—for the last two years, she had contrived to spend most of her vacations with the Weasleys. Ginny and Harry's whispered explanations, rife with allusions to Quidditch, Viktor Krum, Horace Slughorn, and their goofy Gryffindor housemate Lavender Brown, served only to confuse the matter more.

"Won-won_ woves_ Miss Wavender Bwown," cackled Fred. "Sweetheart Brown—about the town—"

Ron threw a boot at him.

"Ron, stop being a git," complained Ginny.

"Both of you, stop being gits," said George. "I, for one, am thrilled that my little brother is finally getting some action. Though I didn't think the girl would be—"

"Hermione can snog whomever she damn well pleases," muttered Ron to the wallpaper.

Harry rolled his eyes. Oh, thought Remus. Oh. He rather missed Hermione.

* * *

After dinner on Christmas Eve Molly insisted that everyone gather in the Burrow's living room to listen to a broadcast by Celestina Warbeck, in spite of the fact that she was the only one present who wanted to hear it. Remus, for one, was too tired in mind and body to object. He sat staring into the depths of the fire—Molly thought he looked "peaky" and had given him the best chair—as the cheap, jazzy notes of "A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love" and "You Charmed the Heart Right Out of Me" drifted easily through his mind. These songs had already been oldies when he went to Hogwarts. He could remember his mother singing "You Charmed the Heart Right Out of Me" in a thin, sweet voice as she ironed robes and he lay in bed, a small and feverish boy, listlessly turning over the pages of a comic book and trying not to pick at the scabs of his wounds. He wondered, now, how much of her childhood Tonks had had to spend in bed. Were Metamorphmagi prone to accidents and injuries? Did her famed clumsiness reflect her genetic condition, or was it simply part of her personality—the product of a too-busy brain that distracted her from the normal minutiae of daily life?

Behind him, Harry and Arthur were speaking, covertly and excitedly, of the Malfoys and Severus Snape. Remus's ears pricked up.

"Has it occurred to you, Harry," Arthur was saying, "that Snape was simply pretending to—"

"Pretending to offer help, so that he could find out what Malfoy's up to? Yeah, I thought you'd say that. But how do we know?"

Remus intervened. "It isn't our business to know," he said firmly. "It's Dumbledore's business. Dumbledore trusts Severus, and that ought to be good enough for all of us."

"But," said Harry, "just say—just say Dumbledore's wrong about Snape—"

"People have said it, many times. It comes down to whether or not you trust Dumbledore's judgment. I do; therefore, I trust Severus."

"But Dumbledore can make mistakes," objected Harry. "He says it himself. And you, do you honestly like Snape?"

"I neither like nor dislike Severus," said Remus. Harry could have no conception of the difficulties, the mind-numbing, soul-destroying difficulties, of being an undercover agent. And please Merlin, he never would. "No, Harry, I am speaking the truth. We shall never be bosom friends, perhaps; after all that happened between James and Sirius and Severus, there is too much bitterness there. But I do not forget that during the year I taught at Hogwarts, Severus made the Wolfsbane Potion for me every month, made it perfectly, so that I did not have to suffer as I usually do at the full moon." As he spoke, he thought how odd it was that his bond to Severus Snape should have outlived his bonds to the Marauders. That he should have lived through an experience that would make him—dimly, partially, slowly—see Severus Snape's point of view. What a topsy-turvy world. How quickly we outgrow the dead, even the dead we have loved.

"But he 'accidentally' let it slip you're a werewolf, so you had to leave!" exclaimed Harry angrily.

Remus shrugged. How little that seemed to matter now. "The news would have leaked out anyway," he said. "We both know he wanted my job, but he could have wreaked much worse damage on me by tampering with the potion. He kept me healthy. I must be grateful."

"Maybe he didn't dare mess with the potion with Dumbledore watching him!" objected Harry.

Remus smiled in spite of himself. "You are determined to hate him, Harry," he said, in a gesture of sympathy. "And I understand; with James as your father, with Sirius as your godfather, you have inherited an old prejudice. By all means tell Dumbledore what you have told Arthur and me, but do not expect him to share your view of the matter; do not even expect him to be surprised by what you tell him. It might have been on Dumbledore's orders that Severus questioned Draco."

Celestina Warbeck's concert ended then, to general relief. Harry, not admitting defeat but recognizing the final word when he heard it, changed the subject. "What have you been up to lately?" he asked. Remus knew what Harry meant. He felt guilty about not writing to him; not that he could have, had he wanted to; but still—the werewolf assignment had seemed, in September, like a convenient excuse to avoid human entanglements for a season. An opportunity to be alone with his grief, or to make himself too tired too care, too tired to feel anymore. It hadn't quite worked out that way.

"Oh, I've been underground," he said quietly. "Almost literally. That's why I haven't been able to write, Harry; sending letters to you would have been something of a giveaway."

"What do you mean?"

"I've been living among my fellows," said Remus, unable to quite keep the bitterness out of his voice. "My equals." Harry looked confused. "Werewolves. Nearly all of them are on Voldemort's side. Dumbledore wanted a spy and here I was . . . ready-made." And expendable, he thought suddenly. Not the Dumbledore would use him that way—Dumbledore would not use anyone that way. But the fact remained that he was, as Tonks had once said of Sirius, without parents, without children, without siblings, without wife or girlfriend . . . quite, quite alone . . .

Harry was looking concerned. "I am not complaining," said Remus quickly. He tried to explain. They sipped their eggnog and talked of other things. All the same, it was a mournful Christmas Eve.

* * *

The high point of Christmas was the acquisition of his first-ever Weasley jumper, in royal blue with a pattern of red dogs. The jumper was a size too big, and the dogs looked nothing whatsoever like Sirius (who, Remus felt certain, had been the inspiration), but Molly's gesture touched him all the same. It was the sort of thing one couldn't possibly explain to werewolves.

Christmas dinner, though enlivened by Molly's cooking, comprised a steady descent from social awkwardness through sinking embarrassment to startling political intrusions and a sudden eruption of familial chaos. It began with Ginny picking a maggot out of Harry's hair.

"'Ow 'orrible," said Fleur, with an affected little shudder.

"Yes, isn't it?" said Ron cheerfully. "Gravy, Fleur?" He promptly sent the gravy boat flying across the table; Bill cleaned up the mess.

"You are as bad as zat Tonks," said Fleur conversationally to Ron, who appeared to be enjoying the attention. "She is always knocking—"

"I invited _dear _Tonks to come along today," interrupted Molly quickly, in a tone that indicated that she still had not reconciled herself to her daughter-in-law-elect. "But she wouldn't come. Have you spoken to her lately, Remus?"

Remus had the unpleasant sensation that all eyes were on him. Surely Molly could be more discreet—did the children have to know too?

"No, I haven't been in contact with anybody very much," he said faintly. "But Tonks has got her own family to go to, hasn't she?"

"Hmmm," said Molly. "Maybe. I got the impression she was planning to spend Christmas alone, actually." She glared at him and he stared at the floor. Molly clearly attributed Tonks's absence to his presence. Well, Merlin knew that wasn't what he wanted—and though things had been awkward in July—he certainly would not have been averse to seeing her here tonight—or anywhere, at any time, as long as it was not in proximity to werewolves . . .

Though Remus would gladly have retreated into a silent meditation over his turkey and parsnips, Harry was already tugging at his sleeve. "Professor Lupin? Professor Lupin?"

"Harry?"

"There's a question I've been meaning to ask you."

"Yes?"

"Tonks's Patronus has changed its form. Snape said so anyway. I didn't know that could happen. Why would your Patronus change?"

Tonks's Patronus had changed its form. Tonks's Patronus had changed its form. It was less unusual, perhaps, than Harry realized—but still . . . There was nothing for it. He would have to see her. He would have to go see her. Better to know what had happened, better to know where they stood.

Harry was watching him, puzzled and expectant.

"Sometimes . . ." Remus said slowly, "a great shock . . . an emotional upheaval . . ."

"It looked big," interrupted Harry, "and it had four legs. Hey . . . it couldn't be—?"

"Arthur!" exclaimed Molly. "Arthur—it's Percy!"

So it was, they saw, as the room fell silent and they stared out the window: Percy was striding through the snow drifts to the front door, his horn-rimmed glasses glinting in the sunlight. And . . .

"Arthur, he's—he's with the Minister!"

The scene that followed was not a pleasant one to behold—the more unpleasant because Remus knew well that there was no Christmas gift Molly would have liked better than a reconciliation with Percy. Percy clearly did not want to be there. He spoke stiltedly to his mother and glowered at his father, while Rufus Scrimgeour lured Harry out, smoothly but none too subtly, for a chat in the garden. Remus made to accompany them, but Harry waved him off. He was growing up.

Eight Weasleys stood and sat around the dining table, staring tensely at one another. Fleur smiled indifferently and ran her fingers over the back of Bill's neck.

Splat! The mashed parsnip came flying from the end of the table where Ginny sat between the twins. Remus didn't see who threw it. It darted between the lenses of Percy's horn-rimmed glasses and hit him squarely on the bridge of his nose. Remus took a deep breath and shut his eyes.

Dinner ended with Molly sobbing on his shoulder and Arthur getting sloshed. When Arthur reached the maudlin stage, Remus tactfully disengaged Molly, handed her over to her husband, poured three large glasses of eggnog, and took them up to Ron's bedroom. He knocked at the door.

"Ginny, go away!" snapped Ron.

Harry opened the door. Startled, he explained, "We thought you were Ginny. We thought she was trying to escape."

"Escape?"

"From Phlegm—er—Fleur."

"Ah. Bill and Fleur are cleaning up the kitchen. Well, Bill is cleaning up the kitchen and Fleur is admiring his handiwork. Ardently. I think they'll be occupied for a while. May I come in?"

He set the tray down on Ron's night table and handed each boy a glass of eggnog. "Cheers!" he toasted.

"Cheers!" said Ron.

"Cheers!" said Harry. They both looked at him expectantly.

"I may be leaving tomorrow," said Remus.

"You're supposed to be staying till the weekend!" exclaimed Harry, failing to hide his disappointment.

"I know. I'll come back at some point, if Molly lets me. There's just—something I need to do. I'm sorry I haven't done a better job of staying in touch, Harry. When this assignment is over, you'll see more of me again."

Harry nodded. Remus looked from him to Ron and said, "Remember me to Hermione."

Ron blushed.

"Is there a spot of trouble there?" asked Remus genially.

"No. Well—she's not speaking to me."

"D'you reckon you could fix that?"

"Well, she snogged Viktor Krum, and—"

Remus burst out laughing and so, after a minute, did Harry.

Ron looked hapless and frustrated. "Well, she did—"

"Ron, I didn't say that, and I don't actually know—"

"Well, Ginny said—"

Remus clasped his hands around his glass of eggnog. "Ron, let us suppose— just suppose—that Ginny's supposition was correct. Is this worth ruining your friendship with Hermione over?"

"Well, no, maybe not, but we always get a bit shirty with each other, and then we make up, and it's okay again, so I don't—"

"Ron, one of the last things Sirius said to me, the night he died, was 'Moony, be nice to her.'"

"Nice to whom?" said Harry quickly.

"Never mind," said Remus. "Tonks. Obviously, I'm taking this completely out of context. The point is, Ron, be nice to her. You don't have to break up with Lavender if you don't want to. And for Merlin's sake, don't bring up Viktor Krum. Just—be nice to her. Hermione is your friend. Be nice to her."

* * *

On the morning of December 26th, Remus took Molly aside and explained that he had to cut his visit to the Burrow short. Molly heard this news with concern.

"You're not going back to the werewolves already, are you, Remus? I know Dumbledore wants you there, but I think you're still looking a bit peaky. You should take at least a week off."

Remus reassured her. "I just want to visit a couple of old haunts—Diagon Alley, Flourish and Blotts—and look up a friend or two. I'll come back for Sunday night supper, if I may."

"Oh," said Molly, her face clearing, "that sounds like a really_ good _idea. We'll see you on Sunday. And if you happen to run across Tonks," she called after him, "bring her along!"

Remus apparated into Hogsmeade and walked to Tonks's flat. The street was so quiet that he thought the house must be empty, but after a minute, Tonks opened the door.

"Remus!" she exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see you. May I come in?"

She stepped aside and let him enter, then shut the door and sealed it with three separate charms. "What's the matter? Has someone been injured? Killed?"

Remus shook his head. "Molly told me you were spending Christmas alone," he explained, with a slight sensation of absurdity.

"Oh. Well, you know I can't cook. I went to the Hog's Head and had dinner there. It wasn't that bad. Lots of congenial misfits."

"I thought you had Muggle relatives who always took you in for the holidays."

"I did. I do. My parents went. But I can't spend Christmas in a Muggle home when there's a war on. Most of them don't know I'm a witch, and they certainly wouldn't understand what an Auror is. If there was an emergency over Christmas, I probably couldn't get back fast enough, and if I did, the Ministry would get stuck doing dozens of memory modifications. _Not _good for Muggle relations."

"And you couldn't come to the Burrow?"

Tonks smiled wryly.

"Tonks, do you have to avoid me? I know this may sound bizarre, but I've just spent three months looking forward to the off-chance that I might run into you this week. Could you possibly accept me as a friend?"

"I do consider you a friend, Remus. But if I go on seeing you, I'm going to keep doing and saying things you don't like. You told me to respect it when you pushed me away."

"Would it help if I explained why?"

"Probably not."

"Sit down. I'm going to explain anyway." Tonks sat down at the kitchen table, rapping her fingers silently on the rim of a half-finished cup of tea. Remus sat down five feet away, at the other end of the table. "James and Sirius used to talk about my furry little problem. That was nice to hear, but it's not the right way to think about it. Being a werewolf isn't just a physical condition; it affects the brain and the emotions too. Werewolves have an unusual capacity for violence."

He looked at her: silent and uncomprehending.

"Tonks, I should never get too close to a woman," he said bluntly. "If I do, I might attack."

She laughed and shook her head. "Remus, that does not sound anything like you."

"You've never seen me as a wolf."

Tonks jerked her head impatiently. "No, I haven't seen you as a wolf. I probably never will. That's fine. I respect that. I want you the 98 percent of the time that you're a man."

"Tonks, even when I look human, I have dreams about attacking people, scratching, biting, ripping throats out. It spills over."

"I know you're sick, Remus, but those are dreams. They have nothing to do with real life."

"I—my body—the werewolf in me seems to find them exciting. I—" He gestured limply. "Sexually exciting. Even when I look human. There's no saying what I might do—"

"You're not a werewolf all the time, Remus."

"Yes, Tonks, I am." They looked at each other. Her gaze was wary and hurt, yet challenging. He stood up. She stepped forward gingerly and he enfolded her in a gentle hug. She felt slender and warm and fragile. Maybe, he thought, she'll understand now. If I give her time to get used to this. Maybe we can be friends again, the way we were a year ago, the night we went for a drink at the Three Broomsticks. . . Then, suddenly, he realized she was kissing him, passionately, urgently, recklessly. It knocked him off balance as he lost himself in her taste and her touch.

Several minutes later, they broke apart.

"That's all it can be, Tonks," said Remus softly, after a minute.

She was silent. Then— "Half a loaf is better than none."

"I—I'll come see you sometime." He brushed her sleeve and was gone.


	19. Home Is Where You Return To

**Chapter 19: Home Is Where You Return To**

He did not see her often. He could not see her often. Knowing this, he came to see her three more times before Christmas week was out—though Tonks steadfastly refused to appear at Molly's Sunday night supper. Remus felt relieved; he was never quite sure what would happen when he spent time with Tonks, and he preferred that it not happen in public.

He told her about the werewolves. He had not tried to tell anyone else except, of course, Dumbledore. The story of his autumn with the werewolves got all mixed up with tales of his boyhood, of Sirius and James and Peter, fever and pain, pulled muscles and bruised bones, missed chances and broken romances and the jobs he couldn't have. These things too he told her.

He told her about Fenrir Greyback, who had bitten him when he was three. He told her how he had grieved for that unknown werewolf, of how he had assumed he could not control himself, of how he had believed him to have bitten in a moment of unthinking frenzy. He told her of how he had discovered his assailant's identity during the First War, of how even then he had failed to grasp the particular horrors of combating a Death Eater who was also a werewolf, a werewolf who was also a Death Eater.

He told her about the children.

Tonks listened wide-eyed and mousy-haired, looking as young as the morning and about two hundred years old. Remus wondered that he had ever seen her as inexperienced, as naïve, that he had ever classed her with Harry and Ron and Ginny and Hermione, who—he had realized abruptly at Christmas—were not children anymore either. Tonks seemed to be aging before his eyes. How much of it was the war, how much was Sirius's death, how much was the effect of growing up a Metamorphmagus, of toiling through that submerged drama that he had, somehow, in those dim happy days last winter, never quite seen?

One visit after another dissolved in kisses and caresses and not-quite-shed tears. Much as his judgment opposed it, he no longer had the heart to push her away. It was very pleasant to hold Tonks's warm, slender frame to him as her lips explored his own. Sometimes he kissed her eyelids, the bridge of her nose, the temples where her pallid brow met her mousy hair. If limited to a few minutes, these indulgences seemed to inspire more of a dreamy, floating sensation than a predatory impulse; and Remus never allowed them to last more than a few minutes. More than his moonlit boyhood explorations of Hogsmeade, more than the war, more than his stints of shadowing Death Eaters, Remus's mission to the werewolves had taught him something about his own and others' capacity for violence.

* * *

Remus, scheduling his visits to Tonks around his peripatetic and infrequent appointments with Dumbledore, found himself on her doorstep at odd hours. April was sliding wetly into May when he rang the bell at five o'clock in the morning, scarcely expecting her to answer it. But she opened the door at once, tousle-haired and groggy, dressed in blue pajamas with a pattern of goblins and house-elves.

"I'm sorry to wake you," said Remus.

"I wasn't asleep," yawned Tonks. "Haven't been sleeping well since—what's that on your wrist?"

Remus pulled down his sleeve. "Nothing. I cut myself. It's healing."

"Remus—" said Tonks, pulling him into the lamplight and pushing his sleeve above the elbow. Just above the wrist, a crescent-shaped welt gleamed blood-red. His forearm was covered with dozens of crescent-shaped scars, superimposed one upon another, most faded, others puffy and fresh. Scratches as long as knife blades tore across the flesh. "Who attacked you?"

Remus looked at her silently.

"Was it Greyback?"

Silently, Remus removed his wrist from Tonks's grasp and brushed the sleeve down. "No one attacked me. I bit myself."

"When you were transformed? The potion isn't working?"

"I haven't been taking the potion regularly since I saw you last, Tonks. If I'm going to liaise with the werewolves, to live among them, I have to live like them. If they find out I'm taking a Wolfsbane Potion invented by wizards, they'll—well, I would be lucky to make it out of there alive. Surely you knew that."

"I didn't _know_. I could have figured it out if I had thought about it. I was trying not to." She hesitated. "It's dangerous for you not to take that potion, Remus." It was the first time Tonks had ever directly acknowledged that his condition was dangerous. Remus felt like laughing aloud. At the same time a surge of bitterness washed over him.

"No kidding," he muttered, stomping over to her sofa and squashing himself into a corner of it. "I'm lucky I've only attacked myself and—well—some of the other werewolves. I've been choosing the most isolated spots I can find to transform, and usually I convince a few others to join me. We fight with each other, we bite each other, we bite ourselves. And then we return to the camp to find out what havoc the rest have wrought. Greyback, of course, is annoyed with me. He knows what I've been doing."

She followed him across the room and sat down, tense and anxious, on the edge of the sofa. "Remus, is this assignment really worth it?"

"Honestly, Tonks, I don't know. Dumbledore wants it done and I'm the only one who can do it. I trust Dumbledore."

"Dumbledore is a great man, but, Remus—I think you're his idea of a werewolf. Talk to him. He should know what this is costing you."

Remus hesitated. Much as he would have liked to be rid of this assignment, he didn't feel he could decently withdraw. He remembered the First War. Nothing much had mattered to him then other than the defeat of Voldemort. He wasn't used to wanting to survive quite as much he did now.

"Is it just arms?" she asked quietly.

Remus shook his head. "Arms are the worst. Legs and feet are also pretty bad. No shorts or sandals for me. And I've got a nasty one at the moment on my—er—buttock."

"I'd like to see."

Remus grimaced. "Tonks—I can't just start taking off my clothes here in your living room—"

She shrugged. "Make yourself at home."

And Remus realized, in one shivery flash, that this was the closest thing he had to a home at the moment. Home is where you return to. This, the upstairs room at the Hog's Head, and the tumbledown cottage on the Isle of Skye where he kept forgetting to plant the tree.

"Remus," said Tonks quietly, "I'll leave you alone if you want me to leave you alone."

Remus sighed and shook his head. "Maybe it's just as well you saw the scars. I didn't mean for you to, but—"

"Remus, did you honestly think that a bunch of little scars was going to change my mind?"

"Not the scars. What they represent. What if I attack you the way I've attacked myself? Don't say it can't happen. I attacked James and Sirius sometimes, when they were transformed. Did you ever see the old gash on Sirius's left shoulder? And it does spill over. Most of the scars are from my transformations, but there have been a couple times when I wasn't transformed—when I had very violent dreams and—I woke up bleeding, with blood on my teeth—"

"Remus, I've thought about this. I think it's exceptionally unlikely that you would attack me, but what happens, happens. If it does happen, I promise I won't throw it in your face afterwards."

Remus's nose twitched. He realized, bizarrely, that he was about to cry. Slowly, very tentatively, he reached out and touched the blue silk of Tonks's pajamas. He stroked the printed house elf over her breast.

"Remus, do you know what a Metamorphmagus is?" asked Tonks suddenly.

"A person born with an underdeveloped melodermal-3 gene."

Tonks blinked. "Bizarre. I've never met anyone who wasn't a Healer who could tell me that off the top of his head."

"Hermione told me. And then I went to see Alfred Bones."

"Oh. Well, if you've seen Alfred Bones, you probably know that I'm not supposed to be alive right now."

"He said you were very unusual. He also said that high-functioning Metamorphmagi live long and healthy and productive lives."

"Don't you think that growing up knowing that I wasn't supposed to live past the age of two or three, that I wasn't supposed to be able to walk or write or do any spells, might have affected my attitude towards risk a bit?"

"What puzzles me," said Remus, "is that you've always portrayed your morphing ability as something positive. I've heard you bragging to Harry and Ron and Ginny—and even to Mad-Eye—about how easily you passed your Concealment and Disguise exam. You perform at dinner parties. You always acted like you were lucky—"

"I am lucky," interrupted Tonks. "I can do things that no one else I know can do. I've had experiences that no one else I know has had. They aren't exactly the experiences I would have chosen to have, but now that I'm having trouble morphing properly, I'm realizing how much being a Metamorphmagus has shaped me. It's not a goofy little thing. I learned a lot about setting limits for myself. And living with fear."

Remus stroked the silken house elf covering her breast. He contemplated undoing the pajama buttons and stroking the naked skin. Kissing it. Biting into it and tearing— A spasm of fear wracked his body. He shut his eyes and buried his face in his hands.

"Remus?"

When he didn't respond, Tonks took his hand and set it over her heart. She held it there. He felt her heartbeat. Her chest rose and fell methodically. He could hear her breathing.

"Maybe," said Remus, surprising himself. "Maybe someday. I can't imagine what would have to happen to make it possible for us to be together. But maybe someday."

* * *

The Hog's Head was deserted, chairs stacked on tables, a dustpan and broom snoozing idly in a corner. In the private room upstairs, Dumbledore was waiting for him. He was drinking tea and eating crumpets with raspberry jam. His crippled right hand hung limply beside him. Remus outlined what he had learned and what he had accomplished in the eight weeks since they had last met. It seemed pitifully little.

"This mission is taking a lot out of you," commented Dumbledore.

"I'm sorry that I've accomplished so little," said Remus. "Reasoned persuasion sounds good here, by the light of a comfortable fire, but it doesn't work out there. At least, I can't make it work. They don't listen to reason. They don't want reason. They want blood and revenge."

"You underestimate yourself, Remus. Now, you say that as yet only two or three werewolves are consistently joining Fenrir in his targeted attacks."

"Yes, I've kept tabs on them pretty closely. But that's not thanks to me. Werewolves are individualists. They don't like cooperating with anyone about anything. And very few of them plan ahead, for good or for ill."

"And you say that you have persuaded others to join you in transforming in isolated locations, so as not to hurt others."

"Yes. A few. I don't have any more followers than Greyback." Remus set his teacup on the table and wiped his hands moodily on a serviette. "I just don't speak their language."

"I know, Remus," said Dumbledore gently. "You're a little too human."

"Werewolves are human too," Remus pointed out. "Just not in the sense I'm used to. It was so strange going from three months with them to the Burrow—and then—" He broke off.

"This assignment won't last forever," said Dumbledore. "I have other plans for you. Soon. I do want you to go back and put in another couple of months. We need to keep tabs on Fenrir. Ideally, you should recruit one of the other werewolves to do this for us. Tell him enough and not too much—I'm not talking about inducting him into the Order—unless you find someone worthy, of course. Set up a reporting mechanism. It should probably be a two-way mirror . . ."

Remus nodded glumly. This was another one of those ideas that sounded good when Dumbledore announced it, by the light of the Hog's Head fire, and then emerged as next to impossible when he returned to live among the werewolves.

"I'll be keeping you closer to headquarters in the future, Remus," said Dumbledore. "Starting this summer. I'm going to put you back onto coordinating intelligence. Kingsley is well positioned to glean Muggle intelligence—you'll be liaising with him. And I think we might try a second mission to the giants. If the Death Eaters continue using them—" Dumbledore broke off abruptly. "A settled life will suit you better."

"I'm not complaining."

"No, Remus. I appreciate that. We all have to make sacrifices, and you've taken your turn. You're just about spent. I'm not going to let it do you in. In a few months I hope to see you back on the potion, living at headquarters and working from there. You should find someone to live with you, now that Sirius is gone. Or get married."

"There's no question of my getting married."

"Well, if at some point in the future you wish—"

Remus looked at Dumbledore as if he had never seen him before. It was as if Dumbledore had never seen_ him_ before, never known what he was. This man who had been his mentor for twenty-seven years. "Sir, there will never be any question of my getting married."

"Well, maybe there ought to be," said Dumbledore gently.

"Sir—"

"Albus."

"Albus—with all due respect, do you understand the risks?"

"You will, of course, have to marry someone who is accustomed to risk," said Dumbledore calmly. He averted his eyes to gaze out at the hazy pink sky. After a minute he turned back to Remus. "Remus, I'm saying this to you and Minerva both. I have not committed it to writing. If I should be incapacitated or—otherwise removed from the scene . . . Minerva is to take charge of Hogwarts and you are to take charge of the Order. You will continue what I have started, always recognizing that I may have made mistakes and that it may be necessary to adapt to new threats and changing circumstances. Severus has his orders directly from me and you will respect his need for secrecy. I am preparing Harry for an assignment that he alone can undertake. If there is an opportunity this summer, I may confide in you further."

"Albus—"

"I will not be able to spare you for the werewolf mission much longer," said Dumbledore. "I may have to recall you even sooner than we arranged. So you will make the most of the time and opportunities you have now. Do you understand?"

"I understand."

"I am leaving now. I have a bit of traveling to do. Eat a good square meal before you go back."

They shook hands. Ancient in appearance but still vigorous in gait, Albus Dumbledore strode out the door, down the stairs, out the front door and down Hogsmeade's awakening village street as Remus stood watching from the window, eating raspberry jam with a spoon. There was a jar of Muggle Nutella on the table; he ate that too.

He never saw Albus Dumbledore again.


	20. The Battle of Hogwarts

Author note: This chapters contains dialogue from J. K. Rowling, _Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince _(New York: Scholastic, 2005), pp. 613-614, 622-624. And just in case it isn't clear from the contents, this is the penultimate chapter of "Home," _not_ the final chapter.

**Chapter 20: The Battle of Hogwarts**

The Patronus came to him in the fields at twilight, as he tried once again to wrest the attention of Jonathan Longsnout from a tattered porn magazine. It rose like a phoenix from the ashes of the werewolves' garbage heap. The message was short: "Leaving Hogwarts tonight. Come."

* * *

At Hogwarts he met Tonks and Bill, who had agreed to patrol the corridors along with several members of the faculty. Dumbledore was already gone and no one, not even Minerva, knew whither, though Minerva did know that he had taken Harry with him. A stony lump settled in Remus's stomach when he heard this. He knew that Dumbledore would not take Harry into danger unless he truly needed him, and he could think of no reason why Dumbledore would need Harry unless he anticipated a direct, personal confrontation with Voldemort.

In silence they patrolled the still and silent corridors. Every half hour they gathered in the nook before the corridor that sheltered the Room of Requirement and compared notes. And then, suddenly, from the sea of silence erupted the sound of children running, and Ginny, Ron, and Neville pelted into their arms.

The disruption proved a blessing, for the trio brought with them the Marauder's Map and further details of Harry's half-baked theory (which most of them had already heard) about Draco Malfoy, Death Eater. Minutes later, they surprised a nest of Death Eaters in the Astronomy Tower, and a full-scale battle broke out. There were only seven of them—four adults and three teenagers—against at least as many Death Eaters, including, to Remus's chagrin, the werewolf Fenrir Greyback. As they chased the Death Eaters through the corridors, Ron cried incoherently that Hermione and Luna were standing guard elsewhere. Minerva sent the caretaker Filch to fetch Severus Snape from his office. Tiny Professor Flitwick sprinted through the chaos and ran shouting to the students' dormitories to lock them in. Bill, distracted, turned his head and Greyback leapt on him with a shriek of triumph. Remus drew in his breath as his heart contracted violently; he looked up to see a garish beam of light—an _Avada Kedavra_—flying at him. In an instant, he leapt aside.

With a violent thud, the Death Eater Gibbon fell behind him.

The rest of the battle was one furious, blurry nightmare. Tonks fought valiantly and cleverly but Remus's mind was clouded with anxiety for Ginny, who was brutally teased and tormented by a condescending, lumpy little Death Eater, and for Neville, who conjured a magnificent Patronus only to realize that it would not save him from the particular jinx that had been aimed at him. Through their midst hurtled first Severus Snape, then Draco Malfoy, then, moments later, Harry, all without a word of explanation; nor could the fighters stop to question them. Three flashes of dark cloth, a few shouts, a few screams, and, one by one, they were gone. Neville tried to follow in Snape's footsteps, was tossed in the air, and fell; Remus tried too, was tossed, and fell beside him on the blood-soaked floor. Half the ceiling fell in, and those still on their feet ran forward. And then, from amid the rubble, came the voice of Severus Snape screaming, "It's over! It's over!"

Silence fell eerily in the ruined corridor. Slender fingers touched his shoulder. "Remus, it's over."

Still he stared into the rubble, into the dusty cavity where Severus Snape has stood, tense and angry and forlorn.

She ran her fingers down his back and kneaded it. "Remus, it's over." And then, with quiet authority, "Remus, come."

He turned slowly from the rubble. He knew what he would see. The fragile hopes that had stirred in him that spring, his fey, feverish hopes, lay mauled and bleeding on the grimy stone floor.

* * *

Not for nothing was he the son of a Healer. He scooped up the bloody mess, the unconscious, unevenly breathing, disgusting bloody mess, and carried it to the infirmary. Tonks followed with Neville.

When Neville had been put to bed with a calming draught, Madam Pomfrey turned her attention to Bill. They sat in a circle round his bed, Ron and Hermione, Luna, Remus and Tonks, like a sentient curtain, staring silently as Madam Pomfrey dabbed his wounds, one by one, hundreds of separate toothmarks, hundreds of tiny gashes, with a foul-smelling green ointment. It was the worst thing that could have happened . . . and yet it wasn't. It had not escaped Remus that there had been several people missing from the battle. Several people who might be dead.

When Ginny came in with Harry, his heart sighed with relief.

"Are you all right, Harry?"

"I'm fine . . . How's Bill?"

No one found the words to answer. Harry stared over Hermione's shoulder. "Can't you fix them with a charm or something?" he asked Madam Pomfrey. So grown-up, thought Remus, so naïve.

"No charm will work on these," she said. "I've tried everything I know, but there is no cure for werewolf bites."

"But he wasn't bitten at the full moon." It was the first thing Ron had said since he saw his brother. "Greyback hadn't transformed, so surely Bill won't be a—a real—?"

"No," said Remus quietly, knowing he was guessing, hoping he was guessing right. "I don't think that Bill will be a true werewolf, but that does not mean that there won't be some contamination. Those are cursed wounds. They are unlikely ever to heal fully, and—and Bill might have some wolfish characteristics from now on."

"Dumbledore might know something that'd work, though," said Ron. So grown-up, thought Remus, so naïve. "Where is he? Bill fought those maniacs on Dumbledore's orders, Dumbledore owes him, he can't leave him in this state—"

"Ron," said Ginny, "Dumbledore's dead."

"No!"

He had known it in his bones, hadn't he? He had seen it coming—or had not let himself see. When Harry walked in uninjured, more concerned about Bill than anything else, he had thought, well, everything's okay . . . we'll all survive. Nothing was okay, and he was no longer sure that any of them would survive. He didn't want to be in charge, he didn't want to be alone. He collapsed, he nearly passed out, clutching his head in his hands.

Next to him, she whispered, "How did he die? How did it happen?" And he thought, she can be strong at a time like _this_? I knew she was strong, but Merlin, she can find her voice at a time like _this_ . . .

"Snape killed him . . ."

An hour? Two hours? They sat in the infirmary, Ginny and Harry, Ron and Hermione, Luna, Remus and Tonks, like a sentient curtain round Bill's bed, watching as Madam Pomfrey dabbed his wounds, one by one, hundreds of separate toothmarks, hundreds of tiny gashes, with a foul-smelling green ointment. They replayed the battle in conversation. They puzzled over Albus Dumbledore's implicit trust in Severus Snape. Minerva came, then Molly and Arthur, trailing Fleur behind them. Minerva and Remus between them tried to explain to the Weasleys what had happened to their son . . .

"Dumbledore gone," whispered Arthur, as Remus and Tonks stepped aside to make room for him by his son's hospital bed.

"Of course, it doesn't matter how he looks," sobbed Molly softly. "It's not r-really important . . . but he was a very handsome little b-boy . . .always very handsome. . . and he was g-going to be married!"

"And what do you mean by zat?" exclaimed Fleur. Everyone jumped. "What do you mean, ''e was _going _to be married'?"

"Well—only that—"

"You theenk Bill will not wish to marry me anymore? You theenk, because of these bites, he will not love me?"

"No, that's not what I—"

"Because 'e will! It would take more zan a werewolf to stop Bill loving me!"

"Well, yes," said Molly, "I'm sure, but I thought perhaps—given how—how he—"

"You thought I would not weesh to marry him? What do I care how he looks! I am good-looking enough for both of us, I theenk! All these scars show is zat my husband is brave! And I shall do zat!" she finished abruptly, grabbing the sponge and the foul-smelling ointment from Molly's hand.

They waited, in the wake of this explosion. They waited. And then Molly said slowly, in a far-away voice, "Our Great-Auntie Muriel has a very beautiful tiara—goblin-made—which I am sure I could persuade her to lend you for the wedding. She is very fond of Bill, you know, and it would look lovely with your hair."

"Thank you," said Fleur, with stiff dignity. "I am sure zat would be lovely."

And all of a sudden the two women were embracing, hugging and crying, over the unconscious bloody mess in the hospital bed.

"You see!" she cried. "You see! She still wants to marry him, even though he's been bitten! She doesn't care!"

He looked into Tonks's mournful heart-shaped face. He looked up to see nine people staring at him, as Fleur quietly mopped Bill's wounds. "It's different," he said quietly, wanting to sink through the floor. "Bill will not be a full werewolf. The cases are completely—"

"But I don't care either!" she cried, seizing the lapels of his robes. "_I don't care_! I've told you a million times . . ."

Her hands were on his chest. He felt them through the layers of cloth, and his heart skipped a beat. And he thought, oh Merlin, this isn't how this is supposed to be happening. In a sickroom, in front of a savaged body, a werewolf-savaged body. With nine people staring at us. If only—that morning at her flat—we could have—I would have—if I hadn't been afraid of hurting her . . . of doing this to her . . .

"And I've told you a million times," he said aloud, knowing it was inadequate, not knowing what else to say, "that I am too old for you, too poor . . . too dangerous . . ."

"I've said all along you're taking a ridiculous line on this, Remus," said Molly.

"I am not being ridiculous," he said steadily. I am a werewolf. A violent, aggressive, destructive werewolf. I am a beast. Arthur, you're an adult. An old married man with seven children. You know what I mean. "Tonks deserves somebody young and whole."

"But she wants you," said Arthur. "And after all, Remus, young and whole men do not necessarily remain so." He gestured at the mess, the disgusting bloody mess, that he and Molly and Fleur and all of them so loved.

I need my mentor. I need my headmaster. I need Albus Dumbledore.

"This is . . . not the moment to discuss it. Dumbledore is dead . . ."

"Dumbledore," said Minerva dryly, "would have been happier than anybody to think that there was a little more love in the world."

The doors swung open and Hagrid strode in. Tonks looked from Minerva to Remus, turned, and walked unsteadily away. He watched her sad shoulders as far as the swing doors. She looked tired. She looked tense. She looked—he gazed after her unbelievingly—she looked _old_.

He turned away, and his mind was one big question mark. Slightly, very slightly, Arthur nodded towards the door.

Very well then.

He ran.

He pushed the swing door aside and yelled, "Tonks!"

She turned and looked at him. Her expression was inscrutable. He took her hand and pulled her out into the stone-walled courtyard, where moths swam in the blue-grey summer dawn.

"I'll think about it," he said softly. "Tonks, I—I don't want to hurt you. I love you. I wish—I want to spend my life with you. I want your home to be my home. I want your children to be my children. I—I'll try to see my way to it."

She threw herself in his arms, burrowing in the folds of his slashed and singed robe. He turned her face up towards his and kissed her gently and lingeringly.


	21. Home

**Chapter 21: Home **

Wizards and witches, goblins and ghouls poured into Hogwarts in the days preceding Dumbledore's funeral. Remus apparated into Hogsmeade daily. He saw Bill at the infirmary, checked on Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny, and finally made his way to Tonks's tiny flat. They spent several melancholy evenings at the Three Broomsticks, staring into their pints of butterbeer.

"Are you taking charge of the Order now?" she asked.

"I suppose. Dumbledore said—he gave me instructions. Almost as if he knew." Remus drummed his fingers on his still full mug of butterbeer. "I didn't quite realize that Dumbledore could die. At least—not so suddenly."

"You loved him." It was a statement, not a question.

"I did. He gave me a chance. He was the only reason why I got to go to Hogwarts as a student, and the only reason why I got to go back as a teacher. When I was a boy, he was the only adult I knew—other than my parents—who thought werewolves could be mainstreamed." Remus paused. "He didn't even see me as a werewolf. He saw me as a smart kid, rather sickly, rather shy, who needed encouragement. He made me a prefect. He got me my first teaching job. He brought me into the Order. When James and Sirius thought I was passing information to the Death Eaters, Dumbledore trusted me." Remus winked a tear out of his eye. "Though I think he suspected Sirius."

Tonks put her hand on Remus's. "You're missing him too."

"So are you."

"I'm too new at this—losing people. I don't understand how you've lived through two wars."

"I hope it's only two, and not a war every fifteen years for the rest of our lives. As long as Dumbledore was alive, I didn't doubt we would win. I knew it would be costly, and I feared it would be long, but I was absolutely certain we could bring down Voldemort in the end. Without him—and without Severus—I don't know."

"We've got Harry."

Remus nodded sadly. "Harry is a mysterious and wonderful boy—man. But Harry is also mortal."

Another silence opened between them. Tonks sipped her butterbeer. Then suddenly she said, "Remus." He looked up. "What changed? I mean, so that you are now maybe possibly considering the wisdom of marrying me. Was it Bill, or was it Dumbledore's death?"

"It was Molly and Arthur. If Molly and Arthur and Minerva and," he smiled wryly, "Fleur all think that werewolves can marry, and they still think that after what happened to Bill, then maybe they're right. Dumbledore thought werewolves should be mainstreamed. Sometimes I thought he trusted me too much. But Dumbledore was right about most things, so maybe he was right about this." Remus paused. "All of a sudden, it feels like a whole new world. Not a world I wanted—but if Dumbledore can be murdered, just like that, in a wave of a wand, all sorts of other strange things might be possible. Even you and me."

"Are you still afraid of hurting me?"

"Yes. All the time. I've seen far too graphic depictions of my own capacity for violence, in the Shrieking Shack and in my dreams. But when I was underground this year, I started to realize that what you kept telling me contained a measure of truth. I'm not like most werewolves. It's not because I'm nice and tame and safe, but at least I haven't deliberately honed my taste for violence. I'm bitter, but mostly towards Fenrir Greyback and his gang, not towards the wizarding community. I've made choices that make me different." Remus smiled wryly. "Another thing that Dumbledore used to say."

* * *

After the burial Remus turned to Tonks. "What are your plans tonight?"

"A blank. Yours?"

"Ditto."

"Are you going back to the werewolves?"

"Tomorrow. Briefly. I need to see Jonathan Longsnout again. I'll set up a reporting mechanism if he's willing."

"Fenrir Greyback is on to you."

"Yes," acknowledged Remus. "But he has been for a while. Since, say, October."

"I suppose you need to go."

"I'm not sure that I really do need to go. I'm doing it mostly for Dumbledore. I'm going to finish following directions before I start giving directions. When I come back we'll have to start from scratch. I never imagined fighting Voldemort without Dumbledore." He paused. "But you can have this evening," he offered gently.

"Come back to Hogsmeade, then."

Tonks uncharmed the door of her flat and went into the kitchen. "Are you hungry? I could whip up some soup, curry, scrambled eggs."

Remus, who was by now quite familiar with Tonks's cooking, shook his head. "I had a sandwich at the funeral." He went to the sofa and sat down. "Tonks—will you let me hold you? I think it might make me feel better."

She snuggled into him, and he held her like a great teddy bear. He thought about his childhood, in and out of St. Mungo's, locked in padded rooms, the teddy bears he had hugged and loved and torn to pieces in his monthly madness. He held her a little tighter.

"Remus?" He looked into the heart-shaped, still very young face beneath the pink hair. "Stay the night."

"Oh, Tonks, I can't do that. I'll marry you properly. All in good time."

She removed his arm from her waist and sat up. Remus sat up too, with a schoolboy sensation of being called to order.

"Thank you, Remus. But you know, we could both be dead next week."

"The middle of a war—"

"—is the right time to live your life." She hesitated. "This spring, when I heard that someone had been savaged by Greyback, I was afraid it was you. I went to Dumbledore. He told me that you had said you cared more about my happiness than my safety. He said—we were both fighters."

Remus smiled faintly. He was enough of a fighter to know when he was beaten. He was enough of a soldier to know the voice of authority when he heard it. With fluttering heart and shaking hands, he caressed her cheek. He unbuttoned her shirt. He unfastened her trousers.

Tonks threw her arms around him, pushing him back on the sofa cushions with a shriek of joy. For a moment she looked like the girlish, impetuous Tonks he had met two years before.

* * *

Remus woke to streaming sunlight. On the pillow beside him, Tonks's eyes were still shut tight in the familiar heart-shaped face. He drew the covers back gently and gazed at her, her perfect, uninjured, unsavaged body. He reached out and touched her shoulder, her cheek, her flamingo-colored hair.

"Remus?"

"You're awake?"

She blinked and propped herself up on an elbow. "I just had the most marvelous dream."

"I think my dream actually happened."

Her smile sparkled. "So," she asked with interest, "when's the wedding?"

"I—well, er—next week, if I can get back. And if you're willing."

"I'm willing. I don't need much finery."

"I would take you in your shift. Or your Weird Sisters t-shirt."

"I know," she said happily, tracing his scarified arm. "I know. How soon am I going to lose you again?"

"Almost immediately, I'm afraid. Say an hour. Are you hungry?"

"Starving."

He laughed. "I'll make breakfast."

Remus was charming a batch of scones into the oven (with the thought that it would be wise to leave Tonks some prepared leftovers if he didn't want her to starve before he got back) when he heard a loud _crack!_ behind him. Horrified, he gripped his wand and whirled around to face—

"Arthur!"

"Remus!"

"What are you doing here? What happened?"

"Unconfirmed reports of Death Eater activity in central London. A cement mixer exploded in front of Euston Station. Maybe just Muggle-baiting, but the Muggles have summoned three _amulences_. Robards wants Tonks at the Ministry, and I need to see her first. Is she here?"

"She's in the shower. Scone?"

"Just coffee." Arthur put his wand in his pocket and picked up the coffee cup. "Sixteen hours ago we were at the funeral—thank goodness nothing happened there. Now it's back to the trenches. You look healthy this morning, Remus. Positively blooming."

"I'm still in shock," said Remus.

"So am I," said Arthur. "So are we all. But I'm glad to see you looking alive." He leaned over and whispered, "Let her take very good care of you, Remus."

"Don't tell Molly I was here," replied Remus, as softly.

Arthur chuckled. "I won't."

THE END

* * *

Author note: This is where I get to say thank you to all the reviewers. Your enthusiasm and encouragement has meant a lot to me. I haven't posted a long story before, and you made it a very enjoyable experience.

If you simply cannot get enough of Remus and Tonks and you want some glimpses of them living happily ever after, take a look at "A Romance, with Dragons." Tonks reciprocates for Molly and Arthur's matchmaking by playing matchmaker for their son . . .


End file.
